Mount Athos

A thickly forested, mountainous ridge thirty miles long and two to five miles wide, Athos is the easternmost of the three promontories of the Halkidiki peninsula in northern Greece. Known as Agion Oros, or the ‘Holy Mountain’ in modern Greek, Athos is a semiautonomous republic of the Greek Orthodox church. Many hundreds of monks inhabit twenty large monasteries, smaller monastic houses and remote mountain caves. The religious history of Athos goes back long before the birth of Christianity however. The great marble peak of Mt. Athos (6670 feet, 2033 meters) was mentioned as early as Homer and Aiskhylos as being the first home of the Greek gods Zeus and Apollo before they moved to Mt. Olympus. Pagan hermits have lived in the deep forests since prehistoric times for it was known then, as it has been forgotten now, that places where the ancient gods had lived still held great powers for humans.

According to legends told by the monks of the Athonite monasteries, the Christian history of Mt. Athos begins with the Virgin Mary. In 49 AD, Mary set sail for the island of Cyprus to visit her friend Lazurus. During her journey a great storm arose and Mary’s ship, blown far off course, was guided by divine signs to a protected bay on the eastern coast of Athos. Gazing upward at the towering mountain and its beautiful forests Mary declared, “This mountain is holy ground. Let it now be my portion. Here let me remain.” Mooring her boat near the site of the present day monastery of Iveron, Mary came upon an ancient temple and oracle dedicated to Apollo. As she stepped ashore a great crashing sound resounded across the peninsula and all the idols and pagan statues came crashing to the ground (it is interesting to note that a well documented earthquake occurred in northern Greece in 49 AD). The great stone statue of Apollo spoke out, declaring itself a false idol and calling the forest hermits of Athos to come and pay homage to the Panaghia, the true mother of God. So the legend goes, Mary baptized the hermits and thus began the glorious Christian history of Mt. Athos.

According to historical sources however, Athos first became a refuge for Christian hermits and anchorites in the 6th and 7th centuries, and during the 8th and 9th centuries these hermits began to gather together into small monastic communities. The era of the great monastic establishments began with the founding in 963 AD of the first and most renowned of the monasteries, the Great Lavra, on the southeast coast of Athos. Under the protection of the Byzantine emperors, the building of monasteries flourished until, at its zenith in the 15th century, Mt. Athos harbored 40 monasteries and some 20,000 monks. When the Turkish armies captured nearby Thessaloniki in 1430, the monastic community prudently surrendered, thus remaining unplundered and relatively autonomous. The long period of Turkish rule brought about a decline and impoverishment of the monasteries that was later somewhat alleviated by the patronage of the Russian tsars in the 19th century. In 1926, a decree by the Greek government made the Monks Republic an official part of Greece while allowing it to retain an autonomous theocratic government. Since the 1950’s there has been a gradual reawakening of interest in the monastic life and currently more than 3000 monks live amongst the monasteries and forest hermitages of Athos.

Most of the monasteries are along the coastal lands and consist of a quadrangle of buildings enclosing a church. The churches contain some of the finest examples of Byzantine art, icons and treasure, and the monastery libraries hold a vast number of classical and medieval manuscripts. There are 17 Greek monasteries, 1 Russian, 1 Bulgarian, and 1 Serbian. While a few of the Greek monasteries have basic electricity, most function very much as they did in medieval times. The monks grow their own food, spend long hours each day in prayer, and rarely venture off the peninsula. The author has spent time in 17 of the 20 monasteries and finds Mt. Athos to be one of the most wonderful sacred places he has visited in the world.

An edict of the Emperor Constantine Manomachos in the year 1060, enforced to this day, forbids women from setting foot on the peninsula. This stringent exclusion of females applies to domestic animals as well. While some readers may deem the original edict foolish and its continued enforcement to perpetuate anachronistic patriarchal attitudes, it is important to note that Athos is one of the very few remaining places on the entire planet that has resisted the relentless culture-destroying machines of ‘modernization’ and ‘social liberty’. Furthermore it is interesting to note that the entire peninsula of Athos has preserved a richness and luxuriance of vegetation unique in Greece and all of Europe. For nearly ten centuries the fields have lain ungrazed by cattle, the trees have escaped the ravages of goats, and the flowers have been unpicked. In a world so rapidly being destroyed and homogenized by the ‘culture of progress’ it is, for this author at least, refreshing to know that at least a few ancient human ecosystems are left intact and relatively undisturbed. The so-called ‘enlightened’ attitudes of science and democracy have neither promised nor provided this. Greek Orthodox monasticism, on the other hand, has done so and, in the process, has protected a place with a rare, enchanting and powerful presence of peace.

Source: sacredsites.com

Cloistered from the Crisis: Greeks Seek Solace in Mt. Athos Monasteries

Mount Athos, a self-governed peninsula in northeastern Greece, has been attracting pilgrims to its Orthodox monasteries for centuries. But the debt crisis has led to a sharp rise in the number of guests seeking calm and solace there. Women still aren’t welcome, though.

Mornings on the sacred mountain begin with loud blows. A monk stands in front of the monastery church of Agiou Andrea and hammers a block of wood. The medieval percussion instrument, called a simantron, is the wakeup call for the first religious service of the day. Several black-clad, bearded men scurry across the courtyard. It is 4 a.m. and pitch-black, and the air is filled with the sound of cicadas.

In a few minutes, the oil lamps will be lit in Agiou Andrea, one of 12 “sketes,” or monastic communities, on Mount Athos. There’s not a single empty space in the choir benches. Sitting behind the singing, rhythmically chanting monks are pilgrims from Greece, Russia and Romania. They have slept a few hours on spartan beds, gone without electricity and warm water, and spent the night swatting at mosquitoes.

Agiou Andrea is not a place to expect luxury. But no one has come here for that. “I am here to wash myself clean of my sins,” says Ilie, a young Romanian who lives in Germany. “Here, we are closer to heaven than anywhere else.” Nikos, a Greek businessman, has come to the monastery to find himself. “To simply turn off, meditate and forget the material world,” he says.

The “Holy Mountain” of Athos is a special place for Orthodox Christians. The sparsely inhabited third finger of the Halkidiki Peninsula in northeastern Greece is wildly beautiful, with almost 350 square kilometres (135 square miles) of dense forests and hills. Legend has it that the Virgin Mary landed here on her way to Cyprus and was overcome by its beauty. God then gave her the mountain on it as a gift. And since the “Garden of the Virgin Mary,” as the place is known, is devoted to only the “purest of all women,” other women are not allowed in. At least that is the reason given by the monks who have ruled Athos as an autonomous monastic republic since the 10th century. Not even female animals are allowed on Athos, except cats.

Living By the Julian Calendar

Whenever European Union officials argue that the ban should be lifted, the monks point to a Byzantine document over 1,000 years old that promises them eternal sovereignty over Mount Athos. The men there take no orders from the outside world — especially not from the EU. The monks live in another era. They continue to revere and invoke the names of Byzantine emperors, and they still live by the Julian calendar. In Dafni, the only port, the banner of the Byzantine Empire, which came to an end 559 years ago, flies alongside the Greek flag.

It is this defiant renunciation of the outside world that fascinates many pilgrims. But recently it hasn’t just been the pious who are coming. Many Greeks have discovered Athos as a place where they can forget about the crisis.

The monks have been reporting the biggest influx of visitors in years. Those who can get a visa to Athos, known as a diamonitirion, entitling them to a stay of four days at most, can count themselves lucky.

Ilie, the Romanian, has gotten a special permit. He wants to stay there for at least three months. To get it he registered as a volunteer at Agiou Andrea, where he helps out in the kitchen and laundry room. He says there is no greater joy for him than to be allowed to make himself useful in the holiest place on Earth. “Most Christians in the West do not take religion very seriously,” he says. “They don’t believe with their whole heart.” The crusades, the plundering of Constantinople and the attacks on Orthodox monasteries may have happened centuries ago, he adds, but it remains seared into the historical memory of the monks.

Many monks, Ilie warns, are therefore suspicious of non-Orthodox foreigners. But they aren’t the only outsiders in question. Lately, Greek politicians aren’t very welcome either, mainly because of the property scandal that engulfed the Vatopedi monastery several years ago. In late 2005, the head of the monastery, Abbot Efraim, reached a dubious deal with the government led by then-Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis: A lake in northeastern Greece that supposedly belonged to the Vatopedi monastery (proven with Byzantine documents, naturally) was swapped for valuable government-owned buildings.

Air and Water Turned Into Gold

The abbot wanted money for the land, but the prospect of setting up a lucrative real estate empire appealed to him as well. The sale of the buildings earned the monastery some €100 million ($129 million). Abbot Efraim, newspapers later wrote, had performed the feat of transforming “air and water into pure gold.”

The scandal led to the resignation of two members of the government, and Karamanlis had to call a new election. Efraim was arrested in December 2011, to the outrage of the monks. The real culprits, they said, were in Athens. “There are many bad people who want to blame the padres,” is all Ilie wants to say about the affair. Like many pilgrims, he isn’t interested in politics. In any case, Ilie says he wanted to serve God in the austerest environment. And Vatopedi, one of the wealthiest of the monasteries, doesn’t fall into that category.

Dawn is breaking over the church of Agiou Andrea. The morning service lasts almost two hours, and visitors have to wait until it’s over to get a simple breakfast. They have to stick to the rules, and breathing in a lot of incense on an empty stomach is just one of them. Ilie shows how to make the sign of the cross properly and how to kiss glass-encased icons while still drowsy with sleep without banging your head. “That constantly happens to me,” he says with a smile.

After breakfast, the pilgrims bid farewell. The monks allow only one night’s stay in each of the monasteries. The pilgrims walk to the next one, past hills and through valleys covered with olive trees and orchards. The landscape shimmers in silence. The entire setting is perfectly peaceful.

Source: spiegel.de