‘The History of the Athos’ by Bishop Porfiry (Uspensky) is an integral part of his previously published descriptions of his travels to the Athos in 1845-1846 and 1858-1861. In total, he wrote more than a dozen of works devoted to the Holy Mountain, many of which have not lost their relevance to the present day. The book ‘The History of the Athos’ is distinguished with the encyclopedic coverage of a wide range of issues relating both to the history of Byzantium, Ancient Rome, the Balkan Region, and the peculiarities of Greek and Athos worship, liturgical music, and iconography. The uniqueness of this study for its time was determined with the fact that all the author’s conclusions were based solely on written sources and his comparative analysis of an extensive bibliography, as well as on the data collected in the archives of the Holy Monasteries. Such methodological principles, based on a critical approach to materials and sources, the search for rigorous scientific evidence in documentary sources, and research works, were formulated by the author as follows: ‘I write the history of the Athos, having at hand books by all ancient writers, Greek and Latin, who mentioned the Mount, and its numerous descriptions, which are stored in the archives of the local monasteries, and which I rewrote for myself correctly ... Therefore, my story is authentic. I dare to say this straightforwardly, because I like the historical truth, I search for it diligently in my own field, and when I find it, I hold tightly, intently looking into her eyes, and having recognized her, I photograph her’. Following that strategy allowed the author to come to a conclusion, unusual for his time: that many traditions of the Athos were of late origin, they do not withstand the verification of sources, and, therefore, they cannot be recognized as genuine ones. No less important aspect of the ‘History of the Athos’ were personal observations of the scholar, as well as his travel sketches and diagrams, which had both artistic and tremendous historical significance. The book consists of several parts: the description of the ‘pagan’ Athos (2500 BCE - 6th c. CE), a narration on oral and written legends, shaped on the Athos about the origin of monasticism on the Holy Mount, and their critical analysis; a study of the history of monasticism on the Athos in the period from the seventh till the nineteenth centuries. An integral part of the publication is the ‘Justification of the history of the Athos’, consisting of 97 fragments from sources in various languages. Including that ‘Justification’ into the book allowed the author to characterize his work as a kind of anthology.