THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF AGION OROS
The Athos peninsula is the safe keeper of an eleven-year-old heritage: architectural monuments, paintings, large libraries with manuscripts and printed books, tens of thousands of documents, as well as unique objects of art and miniature craftsmanship. Part of this great heirloom is the photographic art of Agion Oros. The appearance of photography on Mt Athos is placed at the beginning of the 1850s with the first photographs taken by the Russian Piotr Sevastianov. Following came a large number of foreign photographic missions and individual photographers who visited Agion Oros, and soon the first photographic studios opened in monasteries and sketes. Around the end of the 19th century, more and more monks and laics became involved in photography opening an important number of studios in Athos and mostly in Karyes. The photographic studios of Agion Oros covered the needs of the monks and the working staff, as well as the numerous visitors. Portraits, official visits, church services, annual photos of the Holy Community leadership, buildings, book copying, copying of Byzantine and Turkish documents, copying of treasures and hand crafted paintings and wood carvings, are only some of the subjects pursued by the photographers of Mt Athos. Another important service offer by these studios were identity photos, necessary for the issuance of entry permits, passports and other certificates, as well as the printing of a large number of pictures of monasteries, sketes and miracle icons.

The Mount Athos Photographic Archive
The Mount Athos Photographic Archive was founded in 1991, aiming at collecting, rescuing, restoring, preserving and publicizing the photographic material relevant to Mt Athos. Ever since, research on Hagiorite photography, especially on the photographs dating from the mid-1850s to 1963, has made great progress. The printings of albums, and the exhibitions made to date, have introduced the photography of Athos to the public, and have set the foundations for the development of research and the cataloguing of the entire collection of the Mt Athos PhotothPhototheque. The collection also includes contemporary photographs, taken by monks and laics, who never cease to capture nature, buildings, everyday life and events on Mt Athos. The systematic collection, sorting and cataloguing of this photographic material looks forward to a continuous recording of the history of Hagiorite photography, and an enlargement of the archive and its importance as a source of research for the generations to come. The collection consists of glass photographic plates, black-and-white and colour plastic negatives, colour slides, old photographic printings, and digital image files.

THE TOUR OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE
The material has been sorted by subjects, all of which have been taken from the contents of the photographs: Nature, Buildings, Portraits, Daily life and Art. Nature. It includes nature landscapes of Mt Athos, as well as its flora and fauna. Buildings: This chapter includes photographs of monasteries, sketes and kellia, classified by name, together with buildings of Karyes, Dafni and other places of Agion Oros. Portraits: The portraits hold a special position in the collection, mainly because through them we have gathered the largest part of our information on Hagiorite photography. They have been sorted in portraits of monks and laics, individuals and groups, as well as background, both studio and natural environment. Daily life: This unit includes a large variety of subjects that have been sorted in events, visits of officials, ceremonies, missions of the Holy Community outside Athos and snapshots. Art: Painting, monumental painting, engraving, sculpture, metal craft, pottery and embroidery are the basic thematic categories of this unit.