HYMN OF PRAISE TO
TO THE HOLY THEOTOKOS
On Mt. Athos, a Lavra glows,
Wondrous monastery of Athanasius
One thousand years have slid by it
But the spirit and bread did not run out
It was neither lacking in spirit or bread
Nor the glowing vision of God's heaven.
Thus it was written in books of old:
About the Lavra, the Abbess - Ikonomisa worries,
Mount Athos is her state,
The most fortified wall of Orthodoxy;
That mystical Abbess - Ikonomisa
Is it not the All-pure Birth-giver of God?
The Lavra, She upholds and Iveron feeds,
And Hilendar protects and Rusikon defends,
Karakallou and Zograph, Simonpeter,
And Pandocrator, all She protects
Those fortifications, to Her citizens they belong
But peace and defense to all She is.
