Abstract
Since the mid-19th century and until the First World War the town of Stanimaka, today Assenovgrad, was the centre of the area north of the Rhodopes mountains called “little Hellas”. It was also reputed as the ‘small’ or ‘second Jerusalem’ - a reputation that evolved in time to embrace a larger area called the ‘small’ or Rhodopes’ Mount Athos. This paper is meant to explore the articulation of the three denominations, and more precisely the making of the ‘Mount Athos’ in the Rhodopes during the interwar period.We first delineate the unique religious landscape of Stanimaka and its area, paying attention to the ways in which the rivalry between Bulgarians and Greeks impacted on local religious life. Then we examine the activities of religious virtuoso ‘Brother Jordan’ in the area of Stanimaka, and analyze a devotional image he had designed in the 1950s. This image, we claim, is a depiction of the ‘Mount Athos of the Rhodopes’ as it was imagined and brought to life through the activities of the religious virtuoso.
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