Mount Athos[a] is a mountain on the Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece directly on the Aegean Sea. It is an important center of Eastern Orthodox monasticism.
Mount Athos, mountain in northern Greece, site of a semiautonomous republic of Greek Orthodox monks inhabiting 20 monasteries and dependencies (skítes), some of which are larger than the parent monasteries.
Mount Athos, height 1,935 m (6,350 ft), is situated on the easternmost of the three promontories of Chalkidike which is located to the southeast of the city of Thessalonica in northeast Greece. The name Athos comes from the giant of Greek mythology who threw a mountain into the sea.
The monasteries house around 2,000 Eastern Orthodox monks from Greece and many other countries, including Eastern Orthodox countries such as Serbia, Romania, Moldova, Georgia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Ukraine and Russia, who claim to live an ascetic life at Athos, isolated from the rest of the world.