​PRESIDENT DODON WALKED UP TO HOLY MOUNT ATHOS SUMMIT

Moldovan President Igor Dodon has climbed up to the summit of the Holy Mount Athos (Greece) and presented an icon to the local skete – an isolated hermit community situated there – from behalf of Moldovan Orthodox Christians, the head of state and other delegation members wrote in the social networks.

According to them, Dodon has thus become the first President who had managed to walk on foot up to the Athos summit. It took him and his company 5 hours to cover 15 kilometers up to the summit point situated 2,033 meters above the sea level.

The Moldovan pilgrims from the presidential delegation delivered the icon called “Panagia” to the hermitage on Athos. Dodon said: “We have brought this icon from Moldova so that it remains here as a gift from the Orthodox people of Moldova”.

The hermitage of the Saint Righteous Anne, the Mother of the Blessed Virgin, is the oldest (established in the 14th century) and the biggest on the Holy Mount Athos. It is renowned for the strictness of its charter and for the fact that a large number of new martyrs originated from it, who suffered for Jesus Christ during the Ottoman dominion.