INTRODUCTION
The Xeropotamou Monastery, whose katholikon (main church) is dedicated to the memory of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (9/22 March), experienced abandonment three times in its long history: in the 14th, 16th, and 18th centuries, and an equal number of times it was rebuilt.
The reconstruction of the 16th century came about in one of the most unexpected ways: through Selim I (1512–1520), known as Yavuz (“the Grim,” meaning harsh or unyielding). In the monastery’s archive there exists a ḥatt-i şerif (imperial sacred decree) of Selim. Its date and content are Muslim, but its conclusion is Christian.
“It is written,” the document says, “that the Muslim who persists in overturning this present ḥatt-i şerif of ours we consign to eternal anathema.”
In the document of 1517, Selim grants large donations and many privileges to the monastery.
What exactly happened with Sultan Selim I — whose donations and concessions gave the monastery “breathing space” for a century and a half — is described by Gerasimos Smyrnakis in his book The Holy Mountain (1903):
