The monastic community of Mt. Athos, famed the world over, will at least until Nov. 30 not allow pilgrims to visit and monks won't be allowed to leave during a second lockdown across Greece aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19.

The decision was made by the special ecclesiastical council governing the Holy mountain, an announcement addressed to the heads of the autonomous community’s 20 monasteries, said Kathimerini.

The council said that only a specific number of staff and associates would be granted admission and then only by invitation as no region of the country or world has been spared by the pandemic now in a second wave.

Mt. Athos governs as an autonomous polity within the Hellenic Republic, and home to 20 monasteries under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.