Origins and Renunciation
By tradition Paul was born Procopius and descended from Byzantine imperial lineage; the anchor tradition names him a son of the emperor Michael, while some external accounts associate him with Emperor Michael I Rangabe, an attribution scholars note may be anachronistic. He is said to have received an excellent education and to have gained fame for scholarly compositions, including works on the Presentation of Mary and canons for the Forty Martyrs and the Holy Cross.
Despite his standing, he rejected worldly life and forsook the purple for the monastic habit. He renounced his wealth and travelled to Mount Athos, where the hermit Cosmas tonsured him and he took the name Paul.
Foundation of Xeropotamou and St Paul's
Paul settled at Xeropotamou, rebuilding the ruins of a monastery that tradition holds had originally been founded by the Empress Pulcheria. The Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos, accounted a relative, summoned Paul to Constantinople and offered him rewards; accounts relate that Paul healed the ailing emperor yet declined court privileges, asking only for the restoration of his monastery. The emperor is said to have donated a portion of the True Cross to the reconstructed church.
As Xeropotamou grew crowded with disciples, Paul withdrew to solitude. Around 980 he sought imperial support for a new foundation dedicated to Saint George, which was afterward renamed Saint Paul's monastery (Agiou Pavlou). He served as its first rector and transferred relics of the True Cross there.
Within the early monastic history of Athos, Paul is remembered as a leading hermit figure who opposed the organized monastic reforms of Athanasius, criticizing what he regarded as worldly influences upon the Mountain's ascetic life.
Repose
The synaxarion relates that Paul foreknew his death. His final prayer is recorded as: "My hope is the Father, my refuge is the Son, my protection is the Holy Spirit: O Holy Trinity, glory to Thee." Accounts hold that his body, intended for burial at the Longos peninsula, instead reached Constantinople, where the Patriarch and Emperor interred him at Hagia Sophia. After the sack of Constantinople in 1204, his relics were reportedly transferred to Venice.
His iconography depicts him as a white-haired old man without a beard, a detail that has led some scholars to debate whether Paul was a eunuch.
Legacy: The Monasteries
Xeropotamou Monastery, founded in the tenth century, ranks eighth among the monasteries of Mount Athos and is dedicated to the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. It is held to house the largest extant piece of the True Cross, significant enough that the monastery keeps an additional patronal feast on September 14, the Elevation of the Holy Cross. Its library preserves 409 manuscripts and about 600 printed books, and the community today numbers roughly 25 monks.
Saint Paul's monastery (Agiou Pavlou), Paul's second foundation, likewise endures among the houses of the Holy Mountain and carries his name.
