Just a note on your article about Mount Athos. It appears the 1911 encyclopedia entry on Mt. Athos was put together by someone not knowledgeable in Orthodox Christianity. Though it is true that both Greek and Russian Orthodoxy monasteries are sometimes called "lauras" by those from other languages, the correct term is actually "lavra". Nor are monasteries ever personafied as a saint. For example, there is no "Sancta Laura" monastery on Mount Athos but there is the "Great Lavra" monastery, which someone sometime in history may have misunderstood as referring to "Saint Laura", much as folks today often mistranslate "Hagia Sophia" (Holy Wisdom) as "Saint Sophia" when referring to the well-known church structure in Istanbul. The Hagia Sophia was never dedicated to the woman known as St. Sophia but has always been dedicated to the Theotokos (Mary) and to the Wisdom of God or the Holy Spirit. A list of Mount Athos monasteries and a photo of the Great Lavra on Athos can be found at http://www.ouranoupoli.com/athos/athos.html
It's my understanding that the terms "Lavra" and "Laura" are frequently confused because of their similar pronunciation, though they actually derive from two different languages. "Laura" is a word of Latin origins, relating to the word "victor" due to the use of the laurel, or bay, for the making of crowns given to the winners of athletic competitions. "Lavra" is of Greek origin and originally meant "lane". When one sees the photo of the Great Lavra on Mount Athos one can ceratinly see that the latter applies. Perhaps it takes someone with athletic skills (a "Laurel" wearer) to get around the lanes of the Lavra!
However, there is an actual person canonized as St. Laura. She was a married woman whose husband later died. Sometime after his death she joined a convent in Spain, became abbess, and while abbess was thrown into a vat of boiling tar by the Moors for her refusal to deny Christ and convert to Islam. She died in A.D. 864 and her feast day is celebrated on October 19th. Though usually considered a Roman Catholic saint due to her Western origins, she is also recognized by the Orthodox Christians since she is "pre-schism", that is, before the Roman Catholics split from the Orthodox in A.D. 1054. I'm Orthodox and she's my patron saint. St. Laura was from the Cuteclara area of Spain and I have attempted to find out more information by emailing universities there, without success. Since the Moors leveled most of the monasteries in the area it is quite possible that nothing is left of her convent. I hope someday to go to Spain and do some research myself, in hopes of unearthing more information, artifacts, etc. As near as I can find out so far, there are only two known icons of his St. Laura in existence, both of twentieth century origin. One can be found on the internet at http://www.stleonard-streatham.org.uk/icon.html The other icon was written (you probably know icons are considered to be "written", not painted) by an acquaintance of mine here in Texas, and is a traditional frontal view of St. Laura holding a cross (indicating she died a martyr) and a small jar of tar (indicating the manner of her death). Unfortunately it is not available electronically.
There is also a slightly ironic poem extant about a St. Laura, which may be speaking of some other St. Laura, since it speaks of her "beauty and her bloom" neither of which would be possible after boiling in tar except for God's divine intervention (which of course could have happened, as in the three youths in the fiery furnace in the Book of Daniel). In the story an abbess, unworthy of her post, pridefully insisted on being buried in St. Laura's tomb. After the nuns reluctantly obeyed her wishes they arose the next morning to find the abbess' body lying on the ground. They entombed her again and arose the next morning to find the body once again on the ground. They entombed the unworthy abbess for a third time, and kept watch to see what or who was unburying her. To their shock and shame, St. Laura herself came out of the tomb this time, and walked out of the area, never to be seen again. The vault was empty, even of the tomb. The nuns enclosed the proud abbess in the vault once again, where she rests in peace except for one night a year, the anniversary of the leaving of St. Laura, when the proud abbess is doomed to walk the monastery. God only knows if there's any truth to this story, especially since the presence of such a tomb in connection with the Cuteclara St. Laura would indicate there might be some evidence of her existence, or at least was (perhaps it too was destroyed at a later date). The poem can be found on the Internet at http://www.thomaslovepeacock.net/saintlaura.html
In addition to the pre-Schism St. Laura, there is now a more modern Roman Catholic St. Laura: St. Laura Vicuna, beatified in 1988. The story of her martyrdom by her mother's abusive lover and the results it had can be found at
So there you have it: the existence of two, and possibly three St. Lauras, but none on Mount Athos! :-)
Laura Sanders
Thanks, Laura!
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