History and present days
High up on the top of the cliff, we can distinguish the Hut of the Resurrection, where Father Savvas the spiritual monk used to live. Lower down, there is the Chapel of the Archangels of Agapios Landos of Crete (second half of the 17th century), a scholar monk who studied in Venice and developed an important literary work (The Salvation of Sinners). Today the head of the Athonite Academy, Hieromonk Nikiforos, lives there.
Lower down is the Hut of Saint John the Forerunner, where the elder Gerasimos Mikrayannanitis (†1991), a great hymn writer of the orthodox church, who composed numerous sequences, used to live. Below the Holy Baptist there is the Chapel of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary. This is where the old man Avimelech Mikrayannanitis (1858-1965), a scholarly monk and the first biographer of Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis, lived. Below the hut there is the cave of Hosios Dionysios the Ritor (†1609) and his subordinate, Hosios Mitrofanis, who are honored as patron saints of the Skete. Tradition says that Hosios Dionysios was a descendant of the royal Komnenian family, that he was a profound connoisseur of great [non-ecclesiastical] education, as his nickname testifies, and that he became a monk at the Stoudios Monastery in Constantinople. He lived in the cave with rigorous exercise and achieved to reach the heights of theory.
In the south, in the direction of Katounakia, there is the Hut of Apostle Thomas, where the brotherhood of Thomas, famous as chanters and silversmiths, resided. Recently, they devoted themselves to holy preaching. It is the place where the old man Kyprian (†1948) lived his monastic life.
The cave that was converted into a hermitage by the elder Joachim, who was a chieftain in Crete, is also preserved. The Russian Church honors him as a saint because the blessed nuts he used to send to people were used to cure deaf and blind children. In a cave in this area, the old man Joseph the Cave Dweller lived in peace.
