The Protaton, also known as the Dormition of the Theotokos Church, is the main church of Karyes, Mount Athos. It also serves as the ecclesiastical seat of the Protos, or the primate of the monastic community of Mount Athos. It was founded in the early 10th century AD, prior to the completion of the Great Lavra in 963.

The monastic community of Mount Athos is an Eastern Orthodox community of monks in Greece who hold the status of an autonomous region with its own sovereignty within Greece and the European Union, as well as the combined rights of a decentralized administration, a region and a municipality, with a territory encompassing the distal part of the Athos peninsula including Mount Athos. The bordering proximal part of the peninsula belongs to the regular Aristotelis community in Central Macedonia.