Stavronikita is an Eastern Orthodox monastery dedicated to Saint Nicholas on Mount Athos, on a rock near the sea between Iviron and Pantokratoros. Monks used the site by the 10th century. It was deserted in the first half of the 13th century and later served as a skete. In 1533, the monks of Philotheou sold it to Gregorios Giromeriatis. A 1536 edict by Patriarch Jeremias I made it an Athonite monastery again, the last officially consecrated one.
Gregorios rebuilt it with a wall, cells and a catholicon, the smallest on Athos, with frescoes by Theophanes of Crete and his son Symeon. Fires in 1607 and 1741 burned the monastery to the ground.
The monastery has 30 to 40 monks and admits men only. It holds 171 manuscripts. Earthquakes left its rock crumbling toward the sea, and the Center for the Preservation of Athonite Heritage restored the complex from 1981 to 1999. The article gives three conflicting traditions about its name.
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