Original article (in Serbian) was published on 27/11/2024; Author: Milica Blagojević
“Who built the Meteoron?” This question was recently posed by a user on the social network X under the nickname @GiorgioSanto9, who started a thread in which he offered an answer. According to the post, “Serbian monks from Mount Athos, led by Atansije Kidovic”, presented Emperor Dusan with the idea of monasteries built on high rocks in Thessaly. The post explains that Dusan accepted this idea and chose a rock over 600 meters high, on which the Monastery of Great Meteoron was later built.
The thread on X, which has been viewed over 80,000 times, was copied from the blog Ognjilo. However, neither the blog text nor the user’s posts contain sources or references provided for the information presented. Therefore, we consulted with several historians and archaeologists, as well as with the press office of the Monastery Meteoron complex, and we reviewed several publications on this topic. The result? The story from Ognjilo turned out to be false.
In search of Atanasije Kidovic
We started our research by trying to find any trace of Athanasius Kidovic in relevant literature. However, there is no information about this supposed founder of Meteoron in the books, scientific papers (1, 2), and dissertations (1, 2) we reviewed, nor in the archive of the Serbian Searchable Digital Library.
There is no information about Athanasius Kidovic on the website of the Meteoron Monastery complex either, so we decided to send an inquiry through the website. “This name has nothing to do with our monastery”, the press office of the monastery responded.
Kidovic is also unknown to professors at the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of Ioannina, which is located about a hundred kilometers from the monastery. Dr. Efstratia Sygkellou and Dr. Andrea Babuin confirmed to Tragač that the claims about the founder of Meteoron in the X post are inaccurate, while Dr. Christos Stavrakos said that “he has never heard of such a story”. He further referred us to his colleague, archaeologist DR. Fani Lytari, who specializes in the study of monuments from the region where Meteoron is located.
Dr. Lytari told Tragač that “the information that the monasteries, and especially the Great Meteoron, were built by Serbian monks led by a person named Atanasije Kidovic, is incorrect”. However, this archaeologist explains that there is indeed a connection between the Great Meteoron and the medieval Serbian state. “Part of the Great Meteoron was built and decorated with the money of Serbian rulers during the time of Simeon Uros Palaiologos. Therefore, we can refer to Serbian donors, but not to Serbian founders”, explains Lytari. This is also mentioned in the book “Companion Through the Intellectual Life of the Palaiologan Period“, edited by Sofia Kotzabassi from Aristotle University in Thessaloniki.
Who actually built the monastery?
The publications and responses we received from experts are clear: the founder of the Great Meteoron – the first structure in the Meteoron monastic complex – was actually the monk (and later saint) Athanasius the Meteorite. His origin is Greek, and his surname is not Kidovic. In most sources, instead of his surname, he is referred to with attributes like “Meteorian” or “Meteorit”, but the Encyclopedia Britannica also mentions the surname Koinovitis. This suggests the possibility that the Greek Athanasius Koinovitis was “Serbified” in the disinformation, and was assigned the surname Kidovic.
In her book, Professor Sofija Kotzabassi from the University of Thessaloniki writes that the first monastery at Meteora was established by Athanasius the Meteorite. She also mentions that Athanasius was originally from the town of Neopatras (the modern-day village of Ipati) and that he was tonsured on Mount Athos. “Due to the Turkish aggression, Athanasius and other monks were forced to leave this area”, it is further explained in the book. Thus, they left Mount Athos for Thessaly, where Meteora – a group of Orthodox monasteries – is now located.
The founder’s successor was from the dynasty Nemanjic
Although the initial claim from the X platform about Athanasius Kidovic is not based on facts, the Great Meteoron still has several connections to the medieval Serbian state. In addition to the donations for the decoration of the monastery, which we have already discussed, another benefactor of this monastery was Jovan Uros (Palaiologos) Nemanjic, whose monastic name was Joasaph. This is mentioned in the book by Konstantinos Vaphiadis, a professor at the Church Academy in Athens, titled The Holy Monastery of Great Meteoron: History, Prosopography, and Spiritual Life, which segments were shared with us by Dr. Fani Lytari.
To avoid confusion, it is important to distinguish between the founder, or the first benefactor (Athanasius the Meteorite), and the second benefactor (Jovan Uros). Serbian historian Vasilije Markovic in his book “Benefactors, Their Duties and Rights” explains that a person who inherits a monastery and to whom the first benefactor transfers rights and duties can also be referred to as a benefactor, which is the case with Jovan Uros. Markovic believes it is incorrect to interpret the word “benefactor” exclusively as “founder”.
Vaphiadis noted in his book that Jovan Uros was tonsured at a very young age, between 1372 and 1373. This, therefore, happened after Athanasius of Meteora arrived in Thessaly. Thus, Jovan Uros could not have been the founder of Meteora, but Athanasius the Meteorite declared him his successor during his lifetime, as stated on the monastery’s website.
Origin of the incorrect claim
The only online source, apart from the blog Ognjilo, that recognizes the name Athanasius Kidovic and associates it with Meteora is the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia. Like the blog, it does not offer any references regarding the origin of the information it presents. However, upon checking the metadata, we found that the page had been modified.
From November 2010 until June 2023, the “History” section included a story about a monk named Athanasius Koinovitis, who came to Meteora from Mount Athos and founded the monastery. However, when the page was modified last year by an anonymous user, the name Athanasius Kidovic appeared instead of Koinovitis, along with the mention of Serbian monks. Information about members of the Nemanjic dynasty who ruled in Greece was also added, which was not previously included.
When we compared the texts from Wikipedia and Ognjilo, we noticed that they mostly match the part regarding Kidovic, and they both lack sources. The blog is newer and was published almost a year after the page was modified, and signed by Ratko Sudjecki. He is described in a short biography on Ognjilo as a “writer, publicist, tour guide, and history enthusiast”.
In addition to all this, Sudjecki is also a journalist. Among other things, he wrote for the Slovak web portal Zem & Vek. This web portal is known for “spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories”, according to the Slovak website Konspiratori, which maintains a public database of sites with dubious content. Sudjecki concluded his article on Ognjilo by claiming that “when the Greeks tell you how Meteora was created, they usually omit the existence of the Serbian Empire”. However, as previously stated, the presence of Serbs is not disputed, but according to the established facts, the founding of Meteora is attributed to a man of Greek origin.
Note (November 29, 2024): A reader rightly pointed out to us that we marked the Croatian instead of the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia as the source of information about Atanasi Kidovic. We have corrected an error in the text.
