St. Paul’s Monastery on Mt. Athos

Here is a photo of I.M. Ag. Paulou on Mt. Athos, in Greece, one misty morning taken from the Panaghia Kalubia. It overlooks the Kalubia Timiou Prodromou. The main Monastery castle is in the upper left. On the lower right is the shrine marking where Princess Mara the Christian spouse of Mohammed the Conqueror, brought the Gifts of the Magi treasures to the Monastery a few years after the Fall of Constantinople, about 1456 AD. She was one of very few women who have ever set foot on the Holy Mountain. The gifts remain in the Monastery treasury to this day, the original Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh from the Scripture, St. Matthew 2:11, given in Bethlehem, on the first Christmas.