Monastery of Pantokrator
Mount Athos, Northern Greece
Present day
Elli arrived at the Monastery of Pantokrator on Mount Athos at dusk. She was led to Spyros the abbot. He was expecting her.
‘Elli. Another pleasure. We should arrange for you to have strange adventures more often.’
‘It’s good to see you, old friend. As you may have gathered I need something. And before you say it, I know that it looks like I only see you when I need something, but it’s you that chose this monastic life in the most isolated and remote of places. If I came more often people might get suspicious that there was something going on between us and I wouldn’t want to cause any trouble for you.’
‘You will never be trouble. I don’t care what they think.’
‘Spyros, you know what stories people make up in this place with little excitement but prayer after prayer…’
Elli paused when she saw Spyros’ mock expression of shock and hurt. She smiled and shook her head, amused, and looking at the floor, hanging her head in mock shame and knowing Spyros’ expression had turned to one of a parent ready to deal with a naughty child, waited for the reprimand that never came.
She knew Spyros did not see it that way, but did not get offended by such a comment either. They would often have a friendly argument over this that could go on forever with no clear winner emerging. She was in no mood and did not have the time to go into a discussion at that time. She opened her arms in a gesture of surrender. ‘… alright, and plenty of administration and other tasks which I do not want to demean in my estimation. Please don’t misunderstand me, but you know as well as I do that I’m telling the truth.’ Spyros nodded in agreement. ‘Spyros, we’ve never discussed this before, but it relates to the matters we discussed on my two last visits here. It’s about the possibility that an impostor was placed on the throne of Constantinople shortly before the siege and fall of 1453.
‘And of course that would mean that we don’t know of the fate of the real Emperor. What happened to him? Was he abducted and imprisoned by the Ottomans? Was he killed? How did he die and when? If such a daring scheme was put into effect, it must have been done on the orders of someone high up in the Ottoman hierarchy, possibly the Sultan.
‘Nobody else had anything to gain from that. It could have been carried out with inside help of course in exchange for mercy and preferential treatment after the city fell. We need to conclusively resolve this issue once and for all, if we can.
‘Now, tell me, do you know of the existence of a relic containing a part from the body of the man who was killed and presented as the last Emperor, here in this monastery, another monastery on Mount Athos or somewhere else?’
Spyros didn’t need to think at all. His reply was immediate.
‘I do. There’s one here at the monastery.’
‘But how can we know that it is an authentic relic? You know the prevalence of fake relics being as they were big business in Byzantine times. With the amount of places that claim to have a piece of the cross, for example, if they are all authentic, it must have been a gigantic cross, probably as tall at least as the Eiffel Tower.’
‘The one here at the monastery is accompanied by a parchment containing a letter written by the man who took it from Constantinople, a faithful subject of his Emperor. He came here and became a monk. He took it when the quartered body of the last Emperor was hung from the city’s walls.’
‘But how do you know the letter itself is authentic?’
‘I knew you would ask me that. It has been dated to 1453.’
‘Can I see it?’
‘Yes, of course. Now, something else I should mention is that there is another part of the body of the person who was believed to have been the last Emperor.’ Elli raised a questioning eyebrow and looked at him with intense interest. ‘It’s in the personal collection of the Sultans at the Dolmabace Palace in Constantinople. It used to be at the Topkapi. And we know that part to have been part of the Sultan’s collection from 1453, as it is listed in manuscripts cataloguing the collection.
‘The history of its listing goes back to 1453. We can assume that it would be authentic as the Sultan would no doubt have kept a memento for himself of whom he paraded by hanging on the walls of the city as the last Emperor.’
‘I believe that you may be right. Your reasoning is sound. We can compare the two and with DNA from me or a member of my family as we carry the Emperor’s blood in our veins through Michael, my ancestor Eleni’s son. I’ll arrange it. Thank you, Spyros. But please show me the relic.’
Spyros led the way with Elli following. When they got to the library, Aggelos was surprised at the request as nobody had asked to see it before.
A few days later when the body part and the parchment were analysed and dated, they were only found to be about three hundred and twenty years old. The same result was repeated when they managed to get hold of the body part at the Dolmabace Palace. How was it possible that both of them would be dated around the same time? Was it possible that both of them had been stolen? But why? Aggelos had a theory.
‘After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the collapse of the predominantly Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire, Russia took over the mantle of protector of Orthodox Christians and the flourishing monastic communities of Mount Athos. Russian Tsars and Tsarinas, a notable mention reserved here for Catherine the Great, lavished protection and gifts on the Holy Mountain.
‘But what is less well known is the fact that they were also siphoning away treasures unchecked. Even amongst those who suspected or even knew, who would dare to offend the protector and line of defence against the Ottomans surrounding Mount Athos and dominating the Eastern Mediterranean?
‘We simply don’t know how much has been taken to Russia. It was during those years that Russian monks and monks from other lands came here and boosted numbers of monks to tens of thousands. A Russian monastery was founded wholly paid for by the Tsar as a generous and worthy contribution to the monastic semi-autonomous state.
‘Russia is now the most populous and most powerful Orthodox Christian country in the world, even though theoretically and symbolically the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople is the leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians. In recent times, after the fall of Communism and the Soviet Union and the revival of the power and position of the Church in Russia, Russian Presidents have visited Mount Athos and especially the Russian monastery there.
‘There have been rumours of heavy chests being loaded onto helicopters and then boarding private jets in Ouranoupolis, as the closest town outside Mount Athos, on their way to Russia.’
Spyros took up the thread of Aggelos’ theory. ‘So what you are saying is that those relics could have been taken to Russia and could right now be in the collections of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg or the Kremlin in Moscow.’
‘Yes, exactly.’
Elli who had patiently waited for Aggelos to expand his theory intervened. ‘But how do we know where to look? It would be like searching for a needle in a haystack, assuming that these relics are still there, if they were there at all in the first place.’
Aggelos had the answer. ‘The director at the Hermitage is a good friend of mine.’ He saw Elli’s and Spyros’ surprise and went on to explain. ‘We studied together in St. Petersburg or as it was known back then Leningrad. I’ll call him and ask him if he knows of anything that resembles the relics we are looking for. It may take some time as he would need to go through old inventories.’
‘We don’t have much time, but try and get him to do it as soon as he can.’ She paused. ‘There is another reason I’m here. I have found in the Book of Pallanians reference to inventories for the construction of a huge structure. But I don’t know what it is or its location. It’s a long shot, but the original documents may have ended on Mount Athos for safekeeping. And it is possible that they may also have ended up in Russia with the Tsars’ scooping up of any treasure in sight or any that reached their ear.’
Aggelos nodded. ‘I’ll make some discreet enquiries.’
