While ordinary people can visit Mount Athos, they must fulfil two criteria: they have a special permit and they are not female. The females of almost all species are prohibited from entering the Holy Mountain. Apparently, the only females that are exempt from this rule are cats and chickens (the first, to hunt mice; the second, to lay eggs, whose yolks are used as a dye for the iconography). In the fourteenth century, Serbian Emperor Dušan the Mighty brought his wife, Empress Helena, to Athos, to protect her from the plague. In order to respect the ban on the entry by women, the empress was
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