The monastery of Esphigmenou is located on the northeast part of the Athos peninsula. It is the 18th in the hierarchy ranking of the monasteries of Mount Athos while it is considered to be built at the end of the 10th century.
During the 14th-century the abbot of the monastery was St Gregorius Palamas and for a short period of time, it was the monastery that hosted Athanasius the First, who later became Patriarch of Constantinople.
During its long history, it was attacked several times by Hagarenes, and those attacks were the main reason that kept the monastery away from progress and evolvement for centuries. The 18th century was a period when the monastery started to grow again but it stopped suddenly due to the attacks of Turks during the War of Independence of Greece. This was a disastrous period for Esphigmenou since the majority of the monks were executed.
The main church was built in 1810 and it was painted with murals by artists from Galatista. The Holy Table of the church includes a mosaic of Jesus Christ and other paintings that date from the 16th century. The guests can visit the library where rare hand scripts are displayed.
There are 90 monks that live permanently in the monastery while they live isolated from others in the Athos community, because of several dogmatic reasons. Regardless of that fact, they host a certain number of visitors but it is mandatory to have a contact and book in advance.