Founded in 2010, the IIALU membership includes academics, researchers and public figures of all nationalities who are interested in the study of Athos, its history and spiritual heritage.
It has representatives in Greece, France, Italy, Russia, Poland and Bulgaria; it works closely with a number of Athonite monasteries, and in their libraries and archives.
IIALU researches documents in Ukrainian and Athonite archives to do with historical, spiritual and cultural ties between Ukraine and Athos.
At the initiative of IIALU, the Ukrainian Rada (P)arliament) drafted a resolution officially to celebrate the spiritual and cultural ties between Kievan Rus' and the Monastic Republic in 2016 (No.
[15] From 2014, IIALU has been running a Transcarpathian branch, headed by Y. Danylets, for the study of spiritual and historical ties between Transcarpathia and Athos.