The International Institute of the Athonite Legacy in Ukraine

Updated on Oct 05, 2024

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Founded 2013

The International Institute of the Athonite Legacy in Ukraine (Ukrainian: Міжнародний інститут афонської спадщини в Україні) is a public, academic and non-profit organisation bringing together Ukrainian and foreign scholars and researchers, and public figures for the study of Athos, its history and spiritual heritage.

History

Our group of like-minded enthusiasts was brought together in 2010 by Serhii Shumylo, an ecclesiastical history researcher. In 2013, the group became an institute based in Kiev with the blessing of the Athos elders.

Aims and objectives

To study the spiritual and cultural influence of the Holy Mountain on the history and culture of Ukraine, and Central and Eastern Europe;

To promote the revival and spread of Athonite Orthodox spiritual, cultural and historical heritage;

To interact and cooperate with the spiritual and cultural centres on Mount Athos, as well as with academic, social, spiritual and educational organisations and institutions;

To involve international scholars, researchers, public policy makers and entrepreneurs in the study and spread of Athonite cultural and historical heritage in Ukraine;

To look in Ukrainian and overseas archives for Athonite documents about the Holy Mountain’s Ukrainian influence and connections, and to write, publish and distribute findings about these documents;

To organise conferences, seminars, lectures, and academic and cultural events, round table discussions, press conferences, exhibitions, competitions, research and consultation, training programmes, internships, exchange programmes, and educational travel;

To arrange pilgrimages, and trips to cultural and historical centres overseas and in Ukraine, and summer camps, etc.;

To carry out other projects in compliance with the statutes and objectives of the organisation.

IIALU structure

Honorary Chairman: A.-E. Tachiaos (Thessaloniki, Greece), PhD, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens, Professor of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Oversees Member of the Serbian and Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Honorary President of the Hellenic Slavic Society, Chairman of the Academic Society of Sts Cyril and Methodius, author of numerous studies on Mount Athos and its heritage.

Director and Founder: Sergey Viktorovich Shumilo, Athonite Heritage in Ukraine researcher, author of numerous articles and books on the history of Mount Athos, Editor-in-Chief the Athonite Heritage journal.

IIALU comes under the aegis of the Academic Council of Ukrainian and Oversees Academics specialising in the history and heritage of Mount Athos.

IIALU has representatives in Greece, France, Italy, Russia, Poland and Bulgaria; it works closely with a number of Athonite monasteries, and in their libraries and archives.

Activity

IIALU researches documents in Ukrainian and Athonite archives to do with historical, spiritual and cultural ties between Ukraine and Athos. Its members attend international conferences and take part in awareness-raising projects.

IIALU Events organised with the support of the Institute of International Conferences the following events:

Athos and the Slavic World (Kiev, 2015);

Little Athos. Monasteries and Monasticism in Transcarpathia: Tradition and Modernity (Mukachevo, 2015);

International Orthodox Film Festival about the traditions of Mount Athos (Kiev, 2015);

Rus’ and Mount Athos: a Millennium of Spiritual and Cultural Ties (Chernigov, 2014);

Reading the History and Culture of Kievan Rus’ (Chernigov, 2013);

Hesychasm in the History and Culture of the Orthodox East (Chernigov, 2012);

The Effects of Christianisation on Kievan Rus’, 1150 (Chernigov 2010);

Round tables in Athens and Ukraine; seminars, lectures and presentations.

In 2013, to mark the millennium of Russian Athos, the Russian Athonite information and educational portal, http://afonit.info, was created with the sponsorship of the International Athonite Legacy Institute.

At the initiative of IIALU, the Ukrainian Rada (Parliament) drafted a resolution officially to celebrate the spiritual and cultural ties between Kievan Rus and the Holy Mountain in 2016 (№ 4543 from 08.27.2014).

From 2014, IIALU has been running a Transcarpathian branch, headed by Y. Danylets, for the study of spiritual and historical ties between Transcarpathia and Athos.

IIALU is planning to open the first Museum of Athos heritage in Ukraine.

Sergey Shumilo was the first to unearth the abandoned Athonite Monidrion Chorny Vir, founded by Zaporozhian Cossacks in 1747. His findings have been published as a monograph. Mr. Shumilo has also published the little-known letters of St Paisy Velichkovsky to the last Ottoman of the Zaporozhian Host, Petro Kalnyshevsky. The work concludes with detailed biographies of the Athonite Elder John Vyshensky, Metropolitan Isaiah Kopynsky and others.

IIALU publications

The journal Athonska Spadschyna (The Athonite Heritage) (Certificate of registration of print media: Series KV № 21259-11059-P of March 20, 2015).

This is an anthology of articles on the history, and spiritual and cultural heritage of the Holy Mountain in Slavic and Kievan Rus. The preface in the journal’s first number is by HRH the Prince of Wales, Patron of the Friends of Mount Athos (UK and USA).

Members of the journal’s editorial board:

Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia (Oxford, UK);

Professor A.-E. Tachiaos, PhD, Corresponding Member of the Athens Academy, (Thessaloniki, Greece);

Academician P.P. Talochko, PhD, Director of the NASU Institute of Archaeology, (Kiev, Ukraine);

Dr Graham Speake, Senior Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Studies, Chairman of the Friends of Mount Athos (Oxford, UK);

Dr Nicholas Fennell, Visiting Research Fellow of the University of Winchester, Representative of the Friends of Mount Athos, (Winchester, UK);

Sergey Viktorovich Shumilo, Director of the International Institute of the Athonite Legacy in Ukraine (Kiev, Ukraine).

Other publications:

S.V. Shumilo, Spiritual Zaporozhia on Mount Athos. The little-known Cossack Chorny Vir Monidrion on the Holy Mountain, Kiev, 2015. ISBN 978-966-2371-34-5.

S.V. Shumilo, St Paisy Velichkovsky and the Zaporozhian Host. The Little-known Letters of St Paisy Velichkovsky to the Ottoman of the Zaporozhian Host, Petro Kalnyshevsky, Kiev & Serpukhov, 2015. ISBN 978-5-9905423-3-4.

The journal, Athonskoe nasledie (The Athonite Heritage), the International Institute of the Athonite Legacy in Ukraine. Issues 1-2., Kiev., 2015. (Certificate of state registration of the print media: Series KV № 21259-11059-F of 20 March 2015).

References

The International Institute of the Athonite Legacy in Ukraine Wikipedia

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