Simonopetra’s Intervention / Management plan

The construction activities pertain mainly to the maintenance, renovation and rehabilitation of old buildings, some of which are deeply marked by the wear of time and, more rarely, to the erection of new buildings. The materials that have been and are being used even in rehabilitation works are stone, wood, slates and flag stones and bricks with respect, stemming from the monastic rules and the orthodox faith, toward the environment and the aesthetics of the place.

Farming activities aim at satisfying, fully or in part, the food needs of the monks and the visitors. Rarely farming aims at producing some income. The main farming types are:

Gardens: They satisfy to a substantial extent the food needs of the monks and the visitors in vegetables; however, despite the deployment, in many cases, of modern collecting and freezing techniques, vegetable production does not suffice.

Gardens have been constructed, in areas with substantial gradients around the Monastery and the building, or on «parapets» harmoniously blending with the environment and the Monastery’s buildings.

Olive groves: Olives and olive oil are basic elements in the monks’ diet thus olive groves are the most abundant cultivation sector. Many such groves had been abandoned after the war, due to water shortage and returned to semi-wild natural status, consisting of wild olive trees, and fruitless olive and kermes oak shrubs. Today the Monastery’s olive groves comprise of 1000 olive trees producing, annually, about 500 kgs of olive oil (or 2.5 tons of olives). Additionally, the Monastery’s area, contains 12000 roots of burnt-down, by the catastrophic fire of 1990, olive trees, now, mostly in wild form. These numerous roots are potentially, a productive resource, currently “in hibernation”. The main types of olive trees are those of Chalkidiki (stone olives) and Thasos.

Vineyards: Viniculture is the third, after vegetable gardening and olive cropping, basic farming activity due to the fact that wine is used both in the divine worship, as well as in the monks’ diet. The Monastery’s vineyards are located mostly at the cell of St Nicholas, also known as the “Dontas Dependency”. These vineyards produce several varieties of grapes, both table grapes and grapes for wine production, the well-known Dontas Wines. The vineyards cover an area of 12000 square meters and the vine varieties grown there include the Victoria, Cardinal. Hamburg Moschato, Rozaki and Rimbier varieties, for the table grapes, and Merlot, Limnio and Asyrtiko for the wine grapes. All such varieties are cultivated per biological (organic) methods. The annual production comes to 2 tons of table grapes and about 6 tons of wine grapes. The total wine production amounts to 2 to 2.5 tons; of such about 1200 liters are bottled in the Monastery’s Winery. The remainder is consumed by the Monastery and its dependency the Convent of Ormylia. In addition to the wine, a small quantity of tsipouro (a Greek multiplydistilled liquor) is also produced.

Fruit Orchards: Fruit –such as apple, pear, cherry, peach, lemon, orange, apricot and walnut– trees are usually cultivated on the edgings of the vegetable gardens of in relatively small plots; the fruit thereof augments, seasonally, the diet of monks and visitors.

Simonopetra’s forest spreads on the NW slopes of the Holy Mountain between the great streams of Dontas and that of the Gregoriou pit. It borders on:

On the Northwest with the forest of the Sacred Monastery of Xeropotamou.

On the Northeast with the forest of the Sacred Monasteries of Iveron and Philotheou

On the Southeast with the forest of the Sacred Monastery of St Gregory

On the Southwest it is on the coast of the Siggitikos Gulf.

The total area within the borders defined above is 12950 stremmata (I stremma= 1000 sq.m.) and it is distinguished in various land usage types as shown on the map that follows and as described in the pertinent table

TABLE: Simonopetra’s land categorization per soil / vegetation type

Land Types	Area (in stremmata; 1 stremma = 1000 sq.m.)	Percent of total
Forest-covered Area	7.508	58,0
Bush-covered Area	3.130	24,2
Farming Area	407	3,1
Bare / Infertile Area	1.905	14,7
Total	12.950	100

Logging: It is carried out per a rolling ten-year forest management plan, compiled and updated by Simonopetra; such aiming at the rational and sustainable exploitation of the forest(s). It is factually accomplished by pertinent time-and-space based segmentation. The so-designed logging warrants the growth of the forest(s), both in height and volume, and the enhancement of the overall wood product quality. Logging is carried out without the use of heavy machinery and the procedures deployed are designed as to not cause grave changes / disturbances in this renewable natural resource.

The exploitation of the forest relates to species such as beech, fir, oak, but, it comprises, primarily, of clusters of chestnut trees for the production of useful (structural) timber as well as of firewood (excepting fir and including the evergreen broadleaf trees).

The percentage of structural wood vis-a-vis that of the firewood is increasing continuously as a result of the systematic cultivation of the clusters and the absence of illegal lumbering and animal grazing.

The Monastery’s forest produces, annually, 550 cubic meters of structural wood and 250 meters of round lumber, as well as 3500 tons of firewood, of which 1500 tons are used by the Monastery and the Dependency (Convent) of Ormylia, the remainder, approximately, 2000 being available for marketing.

Such marketable timber is primarily sold in Thessaloniki and other big towns, while the chiseled structural wood is even ordered and shipped to the Kyklades Islands. Part of the useful (structural) wood is availed to local sawmills and furniture makers.

The Monastery has one sawmill and two large storage facilities at Daphne, the Port of the Holy Mountain; additionally it has a second lumber processing installation at the site “Touvlario” of the Monastery. Furthermore, the Monastery disposes of portable mechanical equipment for the processing of wood products and animals (mules) for loading and moving timber.

Woodcarving: In addition to the aforementioned traditional lumber products, the Monastery and the Holy Mountain, more generally, have fostered over the centuries woodcarving, i.e., the art of depicting, on special wood and in relief, persons, objects or sketches. Woοdcarving is an indispensable part of the long traditional cultural and religious heritage of both the Holy Mountain and the greater Greek area; it has applications in / for the:

decoration of practical objects such as utensils and handicraft tools,
decoration of furniture and articles of woodcraft,
crafting of wood art, such as decorative relief articles, church iconostases, etc. § decoration of buildings.

Apiculture (Beekeeping): The monastery currently has 25 beehives and intends to more than double them shortly. The beehives are used exclusively to produce honey. The honey production comes up to 400 to 500 kg (based on an assumed annual production of 15 – 20 kg per beehive. The beehives are moved twice once to the north part of the Holy Mountain for the production of honey from bees feeding on pine trees amd once to the site named “Stavros” (= Cross) of the Monastery for the honey coming from bees feeding on brier and chestnut trees. The production of teil tree (basswood) flowers (of the Tilia gender, mainly Tilia cordata and Tilia platyphyllos), may be included in the secondary forest products with significance in apiculture .

Floriculture – Αromatic plants: A wide variety of aromatic plants / herbs grow within Simonopetra’s forest; such have been traditionally used for their therapeutic and aromatic characteristics. Herbs such as Greek mountain tea (sideritis), oregano, marjoram, basιl, spearmint, sage, rosemary and mint – some of which grow in wild form – can be cultivated by organic methods, thus affording the comparative advantage of exploiting poor mountainous and semi-mountainous regions. Currently, the Monastery cultivates various herbs on one stremma of land, plus oregano on another half a stremma.

Recently, the Monastery started the cultivation of echinacea (actually the Echinacea purpurea species traditionally used in folk medicine) a vivacious plant grown in the fields of Western America and cultivated in Europe.

A basic road network has been built to connect Daphne, the port of the Holy Mountain, with most of the monasteries and its capital, Karyes; such serving the communication and transportation of monks and laborers, as well as of materials needed for the maintenance and rehabilitation of the buildings and of goods produced. Daphne is within Simonopetra’s borders and at a distance of approximately 10 km NE of the Monastery. Simonopetra’s main road network connects to one of the main roads of the Holy Mountain, that of the mountain’s ridge that starts from the Monastery of Vatopedi and reaches the foot of Antiathos

In addition to the basic road network, the Monastery has built a good number of forest roads serving the movement of forest workers and the transportation of forest products (secondary forest road network). A significant reason to built the secondary forest network has been the increase of fire occurrences especially after the big forest fire of 1990