The article examines how Athonite monks conducted fund-raising campaigns known as zeteies (singular zeteia) in Russia and in Ukraine from the seventeenth to the early twenty-first century, as well as the permanent transfer of St John the Russian’s right hand from Cappadocia to Mount Athos in May 1881. Zeteies are analysed as a system of poor relief, linked to ecclesiastical tradition and based upon the circulation of relics, manuscripts and icons. This religious practice reveals the establishment of systems of value surrounding religious objects, whether they were regularly transported or permanently displaced – as with the right hand of St John the Russian or with the Athonite manuscripts offered to the Russian monk Arsenios Suchanov in 1654. From this point of view, a zeteia seems to constitute the opposite of a pilgrimage: objects – and through them, places – come to the faithful, and not the other way around. Whereas pilgrimage allows traveling persons to receive benediction, a zeteia is about traveling to spread benediction to both people and places. During their missions, Athonite monks were both recipients of support and financial assistance, and givers of gifts and other forms of care. While the first position reveals the monks’ subordination to the Russian tsar and his court, the second highlights their role as powerful intercessors and providers of prayers. A zeteia constitutes a complex and multi-phased process, characterised by successive long trips without which the accumulation of skills would not be possible. The main goals of a zeteia were to gain support and build alliances and enduring patronage networks. Zeteies were a testing ground for unfamiliar devotional forms that could be validated or, on the contrary, temporarily suppressed – as with the Gifts of the Magi that constitute an important relic of St Paul’s Monastery.

^[1] Adam Olearius, Relation du voyage d’Adam Oearius en Moscovie, Tartarie et Perse, tome premier (Paris: 1666), 237.

^[2] Eλένη Αγγελομάτη-Τσουγκαράκη, “Το φαινόμενο της ζητείας κατά τη μεταβυζαντινή περίοδο [The Phenomenon of Zeteia in Post-Byzantine Period]”, Ιόνιος Λόγος 1 (2007): 247-250.

^[3] Eλένη Αγγελομάτη-Τσουγκαράκη, “Ιερά λείψανα και οικονομικά προβλήματα. Η διάδοση της λατρείας του Αγίου Βησσαρίωνα [Holy Relics and Economic Problems. The Diffusion of the Veneration of Saint Vissarion]”, Τρικαλινά 17 (1997): 198. This kind of investment shows that Orthodox monasteries sometimes functioned as proto-capitalist economic units.

^[4] Aleksandar Fotić, “Athonite Travelling Monks and the Ottoman Authorities (16^th-18th Centuries)”, in Perspectives on Ottoman Studies, ed. Ekrem Causevic, Nenad Moacanin, Vjeran Kursar (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2010), 158.

^[5] Cited by René Gothóni, Tales and Truth. Pilgrimage on Mount Athos. Past and Present (Helsinki: Helsinki University Press,1994), 48.

^[6] Louis Petit et W. Regel, Actes de l’Athos. III. Actes d’Esphigmenou (St. Petersbourg: Tipografija Imperatorskoj Akademii Nauke,1906), xxiv-xxv.

^[7] Paschalis M. Kitromilides, An Orthodox Commonwealth. Symbolic Legacies and Cultural Encounters in Southeastern Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007).

^[8] Tassos Anastassiadis, “Orthodoxy. A histoire croisée and Connected History Approach”, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique moderne et contemporaine 2 (2020): §2, https://journals.openedition.org/bchmc/463.

^[9] Kitromilides, An Orthodox Commonwealth, 172-176.

^[10] It is not uncommon for historians to establish such comparisons inside a historical framework going from the fifteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century. See, for example, Αγγελομάτη-Τσουγκαράκη, “Το φαινόμενο”.

^[11] Κρίτων Χρυσοχοΐδης, “Άθως και Ρωσία (15^ος‑18^ος αι.). Ιδεολογήματα και πραγματικότητες. (Μια προσέγγιση) [Athos and Russia (Fifteenth-Eighteenth C.). Ideological Positions and Realities. (An Approach)]”, Ρωσία και Μεσόγειος. Πρακτικά Α΄Διεθνούς Συνεδρίου (Αthens: 2011), 272.

^[12] Fotić, “Athonite Travelling Monks”, 157.

^[13] Χρυσοχοΐδης, “Άθως και Ρωσία”, 272-273.

^[14] Aλέξανδρος Μωραϊτίδης, Με τοῦ βορηά τα κύματα. Ταξείδια, περιγραφαί, ἐντυπώσεις [Driven by the Waves of the North Wind. Voyages, Descriptions, Impressions] (Αthens: Ioannis Sideris, 1925), 174.

^[15] However, Simonopetra’s possesses the left (and not the right) hand of the saint. This is certainly a mistake made by Moraïtidis, who tried to build a comparison upon that basis (two Athonite zeteies with the right hand of a different saint).

^[16] Κώστας Σταματόπουλος, “‘Ζητείες’ Αγιορειτών στην Ρωσσία: δύο ανέκδοτα οδοιπορικά Σιμωνοπετριτών μοναχών στην Ρωσσία του περασμένου αιώνα (1888-1892) [Zeteies of Athos’ Monks in Russia: Two Non-Published Travelogues by Simonopetra Monks in Russia (1888-1892)]”, Nέα Κοινωνιολογία 26 (1988): 56.

^[17] Μελετίου Κωνσταμονίτου, Περιήγησις Μελετίου Κωνσταμονίτου εἰς Ρωσσίαν ἀπό τό ἔτος 1862-1869 [Travel of Meletios from Konstamonitou Monastery in Russia, 1862-1869] (Athens, 1882), 62.

^[18] Σταματόπουλος, “‘Ζητείες’ Αγιορειτώv”, 60-61.

^[19] Some Greek relics also had skin: for instance, the left hand of Mary Magdalene examined above, is considered to have both its skin and its tendons.

^[20] Μελετίου Κωνσταμονίτου, Περιήγησις, 19, note 1.

^[21] Aleksandra Sulikowska-Bełczowska, “Incorruptibility and Division: The Cult of Saints’ Relics in Byzantium and in Slavonic Countries”, Series Byzantina 14 (2016): 35.

^[22] Sulikowska-Bełczowska, “Incorruptibility”, 37.

^[23] Σταματόπουλος, “‘Ζητείες’ Αγιορειτώv”, 60.

^[24] Μελετίου Κωνσταμονίτου, Περιήγησις, 33.

^[25] Katherine Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies. Reburial and Postsocialist change (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 27-28.

^[26] Vitalii Tkachuk, “Eastern Christian Relics in Ukraine in the Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”, South-Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean (Braila: Editura Istros A Muzeului Brailei ‘Carol I’, 2020), 88-89. For Meles and Cosmas, see also Ιannis Carras, “Orthodoxe Kirche, Wohltätigkeit und Handelsaustausch: Kaufleute und Almosensammler entlang der osmanisch-russischen Grenze im 18. Jahrhundert” (Erfurt, 2020), 9, note 30 and 21. In his article, Carras highlights the entrepreneurial spirit of some alms-collectors who were implicated in debt and credit transactions.

^[27] Tkachuk, “Eastern Christian Relics”, 89.

^[28] Χριστόφορος Κτενάς, “Μοναχικός βίος-Πολίτευμα [Monastic Life and Rules]”, Θρησκευτική και Χριστιανική εγκυκλοπαίδεια 4 (1936): 508.

^[29] Athelstan Riley, Athos or the Mountain of the Monks (London: Longmans Green, 1887), 222.

^[30] Riley, Athos, 179-180.

^[31] The growing Russian presence in St Panteleimon’s was reinforced after the death of the last Greek abbot, Gerasimos, and the election of a Russian abbot, Makarios (Sushkin), on 10 May 1875. After his election, St Panteleimon’s became the centre of Russian monasticism on Mount Athos.

^[32] Katerina Seraïdari, “Saint John the Russian (ca. 1690-1730) and the Spread of his Cult”, Chronos, 42 (2021): 1-29.

^[33] Tatiana Borisova, “Religious Text Transfer in the Context of Orthodox Intercultural Exchange: On the Nineteenth-Century Hagiographic Texts Dedicated to Saint John the Russian”, Chronos 42 (2021): 35.

^[34] The Orthodox population of Prokopi was forced to quit Cappadocia and come to Greece after the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey ordered by the 1923 Lausanne Convention.

^[35] Patrick Geary, “Sacred Commodities: The Circulation of Medieval Relics”, in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 186.

^[36] Geary, “Sacred Commodities”, 183.

^[37] Cynthia Hahn, “What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?”, Numen 57 (2010): 291.

^[38] Borisova, “Religious Text Transfer”, 35-36.

^[39] Geary, “Sacred Commodities”, 177.

^[40] Geary, “Sacred Commodities”, 185.

^[41] Χρυσόστομος Τριανταφύλλου, Ο όσιος Ιωάννης ο Ρώσσος. Ο πολύαθλος και πρωταθλητής της υπομονής [Saint John the Russian. The Polyathlos and Champion of Patience] (Αthens, 2015), 139-140.

^[42] Χρυσόστομος, Ο όσιος Ιωάννης ο Ρώσσος, 139.

^[43] Χρυσόστομος, Ο όσιος Ιωάννης ο Ρώσσος, 140.

^[44] Carras, “Orthodoxe Kirche”, 8.

^[45] Θεόφιλος Βατοπαιδινός, “Χρονικόν περί της ιεράς και σεβασμίας μεγίστης Μονής Βατοπαιδίου Αγίου Ορους [Chronicle about Vatopediou Monastery on Mount Athos]”, Μακεδονικά 12 (1972): 74.

^[46] Kωνσταντίνος Kωνσταντινίδης, “Η βιβλιοθήκη της Ιεράς Μονής Διονυσίου Αγίου Ορους [The Library of Dionysiou Monastery on Mount Athos]”, Δωδώνη: Ιστορία και Αρχαιολογία 38-42 (2008-2013): 75-76.

^[47] Vera Tchentsova, “Métamorphoses de pièces d’orfèvrerie constantinopolitaine à la cour du tsar au XVIIe siècle. Insignes ecclésiastiques ou regalia impériaux?”, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique moderne et contemporaine 2 (2020): §13, https://journals.openedition.org/bchmc/397.

^[48] Geary, “Sacred Commodities”, 182 and 186.

^[49] Σταματόπουλος, “‘Ζητείες’ Αγιορειτώv”, 62.

^[50] Katerina Seraïdari, “Mourir et renaître en Grèce: quand les femmes cuisinent les kolliva”, Terrain, 45 (September 2005): 153-166: https://journals.openedition.org/terrain/3626.

^[51] Μελετίου Κωνσταμονίτου, Περιήγησις, 102.

^[52] Ludwig Steindorff, “Commemoration and Administrative Techniques in Muscovite Monasteries”, Russian History 22, 4 (1995): 435.

^[53] Peter Brown, “Between Syria and Egypt. Alms, Work, and the ‘Holy Poor’”, in Faithful Narratives. Historians, Religion, and the Challenge of Objectivity, ed. Andrea Sterk and Nina Caputo (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2014), 33-34.

^[54] Αγγελομάτη-Τσουγκαράκη, “Ιερά λείψανα”, 193-212.

^[55] Kitromilides, An Orthodox Commonwealth, 183.

^[56] This form of Orthodoxy was characterized by the reference to the theological legacy of the Cappadocian fathers (fourth century), the use of Turkish language in social and ecclesiastical life, and an ambivalent stance towards Protestant missionaries and Muslim neighbours who sometimes took part in Christian rituals. Seraïdari, “Saint John the Russian”, 1-29.

^[57] “Κειμήλια από το Ιερό Παντοκρατορινό Κελλί Αγίου Γεωργίου Φανερωμένου (Αγιον Ορος) [Heirlooms from the Cell of Saint George Faneromenos (Athos)]”, accessed January 16, 2024, https://leipsanothiki.blogspot.com/2015/04/429.html.

^[58] “Μόσχα: Ευγνώμονες για την υποδοχή οι καλόγεροι του Αγίου Ορους [Moscow: The Athonite Monks are Grateful for the Welcome]”, accessed January 16, 2024, https://www.vimaorthodoxias.gr/rosiki-ekklisia/mosxa-evgnomones-gia-tin-ypodoxi-oi-kalogeroi-tou-agiou-orous/?print=print.

^[59] “Κύριλλος: Συναντήθηκε με την αποστολή της Ιεράς Μονής του Αγίου Παύλου [Kirill Met with St Paul’s Representatives]”, accessed January 16, 2024, https://www.briefingnews.gr/kosmos/kyrillos-synantithike-me-tin-apostoli-tis-ieras-monis-toy-agioy-payloy?qt-quicktab_for_articles=0.

^[60] “On the Day of the Epiphany, Kirill Defends Pilgrims who Worship the ‘Gifts of the Magi’ ”, accessed January 16, 2024, https://www.asianews.it/news-en/On-the-day-of-the-Epiphany,-Kirill-defends-pilgrims-who-worship-the-gifts-of-the-Magi-30076.html.

^[61] Yulia Latynina, “The False Gifts of the Magi”, The Moscow Times, January 14, 2014, https://www.themoscowtimes. com/2014/01/14/the-false-gifts-of-the-magi-a31070.

^[62] Lyudmila Alexandrova, “Excited Pilgrims in Moscow, St Petersburg Spend Long Hours in Line to Touch Christian Relic”, TASS Russian News Agency, January 16 , 2014, https://tass.com/opinions/763147.

^[63] Shaun Walker, “Ukraine-Russia Tensions Reach Greece’s Holy Mount Athos”, Orthodox Times, December 14, 2018, https://orthodoxtimes.com/ukraine-russia-tensions-reach-greeces-holy-mount-athos/.

Fig. 1. Photograph by Gabriel Millet (1867-1953), taken in 1920 on a glass plate, entitled “Mont Athos, monastère de Xénophon, vue intérieure du nouveau catholicon, Un groupe de moines présente les objets du trésor liturgique”. URL: https://bibnum.explore.psl.eu/s/psl/ark:/18469/2s91b. This is a photograph showing the Xenophon Monastery and its monks presenting their most precious objects of cult.

Fig. 2. Photograph by Gabriel Millet (1867-1953), taken in 1920 on a glass plate, entitled “Mont Athos, monastère de Docheiariou, vue intérieur du catholicon, Un groupe de moines présente les objets du trésor liturgique”. URL: https://bibnum.explore.psl.eu/s/psl/ark:/18469/2spr0. This is a photograph showing the Doheiariou Monastery and its monks presenting their most precious objects of cult.

Fig. 3. Photograph by Gabriel Millet (1867-1953), taken in 1919/1920, entitled “Mont Athos, Saint-Paul, grains de myrrhe des trois Rois mages“, Collège de France. URL: https://bibnum.explore.psl.eu/s/psl/ark:/ 18469/24w8s. It shows the Gifts of the Magi, an important relic of St Paul’s Monastery.