Posted on Sun, Dec. 23, 2007
http://www.kansas.com/195/story/262395.html
Pilgrimageto the past
mount Athos in greece is rich in chanting and 10th-century lifestyle
BY NEIL AVERITT
Chicago Tribune
Welcome to the Monastic Republic of Holy Mount Athos. Please set your
calendar back a thousand years. Clocks here run on Byzantine time, which
starts at sunset. Dates are calculated according to the Julian calendar
of the Roman Empire, which differs by 13 days from the modern Gregorian
calendar you're used to. Some settlements are supplied solely by mule
teams, and the flag of Byzantium still flies.
Radio? Television? Newspapers? Paved roads? If they didn't exist in the
year 972, you probably won't find them here.
And if you're a woman, you'd better make other plans. Females have been
strictly forbidden here for a thousand years. Not even female animals
are permitted.
Mount Athos is an Eastern Orthodox monastic republic and a surviving
administrative unit of the Byzantine Empire -- a fully functioning
mini-state with roads, settlements and a capital city, all operating
under a charter granted by the Byzantine emperor at Constantinople in 972.
That world is preserved here in great detail and texture. Clothes,
music, roads, public fountains, aqueducts, arched stone bridges,
vegetable plots -- all are from another age. Even the shiniest new
chapel is built with traditional Byzantine-style brickwork, the product
of a living culture.
Legally speaking, Mount Athos is an autonomous region in northeast
Greece, with most characteristics of an independent state. Visitors must
show passports on the way in and undergo customs inspections on the way out.
Psychologically and geographically speaking, it's a world apart. It's
perched on a hilly, heavily forested peninsula -- 6 miles wide and 35
miles long -- which terminates in the peak of Mount Athos, a sharply
pointed, bare rock, 6,700 feet high, that drops steeply into the Aegean.
Scattered over this rugged landscape are 20 large monasteries, a dozen
smaller communities, innumerable hermitages and 2,000 monks. The whole
place is reachable only by boat.
This exotic little state has many features of a truly great travel
destination: grand architecture, hiking trails along clifftops or
through virgin forests, guest rooms in monasteries, meals of fresh
natural foods, and a chance to talk with wise and thoughtful men about
the nature of the good life and the state of your soul.
And no one can justly complain about the price: In the tradition of
monastic hospitality, each monastery offers two meals and a night's
lodging for free, then sends you on your way. You can spend a week at
Mt. Athos, as I recently did, without spending a dime.
That is, if they'll admit you in the first place.
Mt. Athos guards its isolation and discourages casual visitors. To be
admitted, I had to prepare a letter for the central Pilgrims' Bureau
explaining why I wanted to go there. Fortunately, I had a decent reason:
After years of legal practice, I was ready for a seriously
non-materialistic pilgrimage. I was granted one of 10 permits issued
each day for non-Orthodox visitors.
Mt. Athos is the spiritual center of the Eastern Orthodox world.
Visitors need not be Orthodox, but it helps to get in if they have
religious or spiritual purposes in mind.
I got my permission to visit Mt. Athos last May, and entered, as most
visitors do, through the town of Ouranopolis, a honky-tonk resort 75
miles southeast of Thessaloniki. This is the end of the road from the
outside world. There I showed my entry papers and boarded a ferry for
the two-hour ride along the coast to the little town of Daphne, the port
of Mt. Athos.
>From Daphne, visitors can transfer to another ferry that serves the
monasteries farther along the coast, or set off on one of the walking
trails, or use the simple but efficient system of buses and minivans.
The best plan is to entirely leave public transportation a bit before
your destination, and walk the last couple of hours to get into a proper
pilgrim's frame of mind. That's what I usually did.
The most striking piece of architecture is the monastery of Simonopetra,
where I stayed the first night. It sits on an outcrop of rock a thousand
feet above the sea and rises like a fortress, with the bottom 40 feet of
its walls blank stone. But the topmost floors are open with a vengeance:
Four stories of decidedly rickety-looking wooden balconies run all the
way around the building. Walking on the balconies provides an early test
of one's faith and serenity. There are gaps between the floorboards, and
it's a loooong way down.
Like most of the monasteries, Simonopetra is filled with the sounds of
heavy renovation. Just 30 years ago it appeared that Athos was about to
die out. The buildings were in disrepair, and most of the monks were
old. Today, however, the average age has fallen to something closer to
40, young monks are common, and many of the new entrants are highly
educated. One is a former Harvard professor.
It was at Simonopetra that I began to learn the basic routine on Mt.
Athos: A monk passes through each monastery courtyard at 3:30 a.m.,
tapping a distinctive rhythm on a wooden board called a talanton to wake
everyone for 4 a.m. services, which begin in total darkness and run for
three hours as the candlelit church slowly brightens into daylight.
After breakfast there's a ferry ride or a few hours' hike to the next
monastery. There you have a meeting with the host monk, who greets
visitors, offers the traditional welcome of jellied candy and cool
water, and explains the layout and schedule of the monastery. Ninety
percent of pilgrims are Greek, but most guestmasters speak at least a
little English.
Then there are a few quiet hours to explore, talk with the monks, attend
afternoon services and have dinner. After more free time and an early
bedtime at 9:30 p.m., a visitor enjoys the smooth and easy sleep of a
stress-free life.
At Simonopetra I also encountered the role that relics play in Orthodox
tradition. The monastery had many, including what is believed to be the
left hand of Mary Magdalene. Those could be kissed, or touched by
crosses that the visitors had brought with them.
My next day's destination was the Danieleon -- not a monastery, but a
free-standing house for five or 10 monks, located at the extreme end of
the peninsula in a rugged area without roads. I caught a ferry, then
toiled up a series of steep switchbacks under the hot sun for an hour.
Then, at last, relief: a terrace, a walkway under a cool and shady
arbor, flower beds and a view over the Aegean.
The monks at the Danieleon are famous for their expert chanting. They
start in the morning darkness, in a little chapel dimly lit with a few
small olive-oil lamps, some shining through containers of colored glass.
They're shadowy shapes, nothing more. But in this darkness comes a
sonorous, complex, humming harmony of many voices, soothing and
otherworldly, a perfect accompaniment to three hours of meditation.
Not everything was sweetness and light. At dinnertime the night before,
I had been sent outside with the command "exo, exo" (outside, outside)
and ate by myself at a table on the terrace. This was presumably because
I was non-Orthodox. The non-Orthodox are sometimes sent to secondary
places on Athos, particularly during church services. However, the monks
did invite me into the chapel for the morning service, which was the
important thing.
The monasteries varied widely in their approach to this issue, with some
involving the non-Orthodox on equal terms, some seating them in the
outside hall, and some keeping them farther back in the church porch. In
all cases where a distinction was made, however, it was done kindly and
with the explanation that there was an injunction against praying with
people who were not members of the church.
Next on my journey was Grigoriou, a midsize monastery on the rocks just
above the sea. It's noted for the friendliness of its monks: Benches and
kiosks on the grounds are arranged for easy conversation. Visitors
gather around the monks in twos and threes, talking quietly, often
comparing Orthodoxy and Western Christianity.
A novice at one of the monasteries -- a former teacher of classics --
explained that Western churches often take positions on issues of social
justice. The Orthodox church, by contrast, sees itself more as a
"hospital for souls," concerned primarily with the individual's inner
peace and his relationship to God. It sees itself as "a religion of the
heart," and tries to induce spirituality through more directly aesthetic
means, such as the chants, incense, candles and, most importantly, the
services in the quietest hour of the night when the heart is most open.
The monastery of Vatopedi is definitely at the urbane end of the scale.
It's one of the largest on the mountain, with a courtyard that looks
like the center of an Italian Renaissance town. One of the monks told me
that Britain's Prince Charles, a regular visitor to Mt. Athos, had been
a guest there earlier in the month.
Vatopedi stands in an area of rolling agricultural land, rather than on
steep cliffs. An easy walk leads past farmhouses and along country
lanes, where a sense of bone-deep peace lies on the land. You can hear
the rush of birds' wings and the hum of bees in a flowering tree.
I was reminded of a conversation a few days previously with an English
monk named Father Damian, who had stopped by Grigoriou as a visitor and
ended up staying there. He recommended the line from Psalms, "Be still
and know that I am God."
One thing notably absent from this landscape is the feminine touch.
Partly this is a consequence of monastic status, for Mt. Athos is
basically a cooperative of private monasteries. Another reason is a
belief that Christ gave the peninsula to his mother, Mary, to be her
private garden, and other women are excluded to more distinctively honor
the Virgin Mary.
As my week wound down, I realized that a kind of "spiritual detox" had
taken place. I felt I had been on Mt. Athos long enough when I began to
look forward to the pre-dawn ritual, when I accepted with contentment
whatever portion of food was offered and when I felt no particular
compulsion to learn the latest news. I did, however, miss the reliable
hot showers of the outside world.
*IF YOU GO*
Mt. Athos admits about 120 Orthodox and 10 non-Orthodox visitors per day.
Information: Friends of Mt. Athos, www.bates.edu/~rallison/friends
<http://www.bates.edu/%7Erallison/friends>.
For entry permits: Mt. Athos Pilgrims' Bureau, 109 Egnatia St., GR-54635
Thessaloniki, Greece; 011-30-2310-252578.
Chicago Tribune
