Graham Speake was educated at St Paul's School, Trinity College, Cambridge, where he read classics, and Christ Church, Oxford, where he wrote a doctoral thesis on the Byzantine transmission of ancient Greek literature. Over the past forty years he has made twenty pilgrimages to Mount Athos. In 1990, he founded the Friends of Mount Athos, of which he is now President. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. His publications include Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise (2nd edition 2014), for which he was awarded the Criticos Prize, and A History of the Athonite Commonwealth (2018).