Monks of Mt Athos

In the wake of another Church Unity Octave, Fr STANLEY LUFF looks forward to the possibility that "a day will come when we shall turn to Orthodoxy for what we have lost or thrown away."
LAST year I achieved the long-standing ambition of visiting the monastic "republic" of Mount Athos. I came home with mixed sentiments. Athonite prejudice towards Roman Catholicism is undiminished — even aggravated by current ecumenism and other Western trends.
I had expected to be unable
carried chalice and vestments) to celebrate Mass (though or even receive Holy Cornmunion ; I was not even offered the antidoron (blessed bread given at the end of the liturgy
sacramental of a sacrament).
In the rationed seven days of a normal visit, slogging round the lower half of the peninsular, where a greater variety of monastic express'ion is available, keeps you too much on the go to assimilate anything closely. Anyway, the fashion seems to be to keep the tourists moving.
It is in retrospect that I become aware of the enduring effect of Athos and of a longing to return — provided I don't repeat the mistake of travelling Orient Express. I realise that I went to assess Athos and found Athos judging me. It takes time to accept the reversal: It is as well to recall what Athos will signify to most readers. It is a mountain inhabited and governed by monks of the Orthodox Church and no woman, nor even female cattle, may set foot on their territory. The monasteries have ancient churches thick with icons and the monks wear beards.
My paperback introduction to the Athos story was titled "Two Thousand Beards on Athos" — a sizeable population. To my surprise, a number of people confuse Athos with the Meteora monasteries of the Greek interior — dwellings and churches hewn out of the top of isolated rocks.
Athos is not an island, but it is a very successful peninsula. You reach it by sea as you would the Isle of Man or the Scillies. The Holy Mountan nearly twice the height of Snowdon — rises at the southeast, the seaward end: the neck is at sea level. Total length is about 25 miles, Although physically it is possible to enter the monastic territory by awkward footpaths, the normal approach is by boat from Ouranopolis to the harbour of Dafni, and thence by bus or, if it breaks down, on foot to Karyes, the "capital," where Greek police vet your documents and the monastic administration, for a fee of about £2, issues a pass entitling you to free hospitality (offering usually accepted) at any of the 20 land-owning monasteries.
If 2,000 was an estimate of the population over 30 years ago, more recent ones are lower. Articles over the last few years speak of Athos facing extinction as old men die, even of Tourist Department take-overs. I did not have this impression. A few communities are clearly in a bad way, but the general picture is one of revival and an improvement both in personnel and observance.
I have not tried to conceal the fact that my experience was limited, as indeed must be that of most visitors. Still, I visited nine monasteries and had several conversations, and I feel the impressions I offer are fairly representative. Karyes is roughly central, and south-east rises the splendid summit of the Holy Mountain where monks make an annual pilgrimage to its Church of the Transfiguration. Where the mountain walls fall precipitously to the sea are the barely accessible dwellings of anchorites.
Where there is more access
— and not much at that, are
monastic villages. The 20 major monasteries, which own the land and share the government, are either cenobitic, that is, they live a normal community life like an average western
monastery, or idiorrhythmic, where the monks have their
own apartments and maintain only certain elements of common life.
. Life on Athos presents the entire range of expression originated in the Egyptian desert in the third century and developed subsequently — less, however, the later Western patterns of friars, clerks regular, and . active congregations.
In order to include something of the "desert" on the seaward slopes of Athos I chose to tour the south-east end of the peninsula, which kept us on the move throughout our seven days. It is a popular choice for first visits, but on a subsequent one it might be wise to confine oneself to a more limited area.
To begin our circuit of the coast we descended first to the monastery of Stavronikita. It looks like a medieval castle sunning itself by the sea. Which is what it is.
Athonite monasteries, according to size, resemble forts or fortified towns. the outstanding feature is a keep, not a church. Most churches follow the plan of the tenth century katholikon (principal church of a monastery) of the Great Lavra and, though stately in proportions, are modest in size.
Stavronikita is a sixteenth century foundation; till recently it was idiorrhythmic and impoverished. In 1968, having somehow cleared its debts, it became cenobitic, and today is a young and observant community living in a clean and well-kept house.
I had been advised to go there first as the abbot is French-speaking and thought to be ecumenically minded. However, my arrival was on the afternoon of Greek Holy Saturday and I had no opportunity to seek an interview.
We did converse at some length with the young guestmaster, who turned out to be a Swiss Catholic tvho had opted for Orthodoxy for the sake of its monasticism and spirituality.
From other sources I gather he in fact joined a mainland monastery and was on loan to Athos for two years. He spoke of Catholicism without rancour and of Vatican II made two points which I consider timely.
lie though the reforms on the whole wise, but that we should now arrest the spate of change and measure post-Conciliar results against the norms of the Grgat Church (pre-Schism).
Another visitor at Stavronikita was a young
French Benedictine of Saint
Benoit sur Loire, who is in fact living as a hermit in the south of France. He assumed a very elegant white habit, and rather
surprised me with the observa
tion that Catholics who admired Orthodoxy often ended up in it. From Stavronikita, which I nicknamed "The Town of Titipu" because of the very jolly carillon they' played at intervals to celebrate Our Lord's Resurrection, we walked by good earth roads (suitable for forestry trucks) to Iviron. Iviron is idiorrhythmic, vast, and dilapidated, though its beautiful tenth century church is in excellent order and the rich library well kept. A few of the brethren might qualify for the pejorative description of Eastern monks as dirty and ignorant — even they can claim a great tradition!
Others were quite dapper. The young sacristan was the friendliest Orthodox I met, turning us away from relics of great Eastern Fathers as "Orthodox" and inviting us to venerate those of respectable "Catholics," such as Gregory the Great. His largest relic was a complete leg of the Woman with an Issue of Blood.
Iviron was a spiritual centre of Georgian Orthodoxy. The name is related to "Iberia," the ancient name for Georgia in the USSR. The last Georgian monk, died in 1955.
The traditions of this house and its harbour cannot be beaten: Our Lady is said to have landed there and so liked the scene that Christ gave her Athos to be "a legacy, a garden and paradise, and a garden of salvation for those willing to be saved."
Boats ply round the coast from one monastic harbour to another — often miles from the parent house. We took one to the Great Lavra. This is the mother monastery, founded in 963 by St Athanasius of Trebizond.
Monastic beginnings on the peninsula are far older and perhaps cannot be determined (the basilican church at Karyes is said to have been founded by Constantine), but the organise
tion and privileges date from his initiative.
The millenary was kept in 1963 and a pan-Benedictine pilgrimage was planned but did not quite come off. I feel now that a mass peaceful invasion by Western monks would not have been understood by Athonites. There was in fact an Italian Benedictine house on the mountain before the Great Schism, of which some vestiges remain.
The Great Lavra is a walledtown monastery, about the size of Conway or Caernarvon. Because of its primacy there were too many guests — about 40: many young Greeks, Germans, French, Americans, two Nepalese.
I made no close contacts there, but was struck by the geniality of the brethren. It was like staying in a sleepy, sunny town where bells played now and then and people drifted to church.
After the Great Lavra you turn the heel of the peninsula, rounding the steep slopes of Athos. Poorly sign-posted paths are tracks over knobbly limestone. Not a few got lost and we ended up with others at the Rumanian skete of Prodromou. • A skete normally implies a monastic village depending on an abbey, but Prodromou is structurally a normal monastery. It was founded by Rumanian monks in 1852. The monks are aged and the church decays.
However, an active man (already monk and priest) had arrived from Rumania with a few companions and hoped to attract more. He told us the Rumanian Minister of Fine Arts had already promised to restore the church. According to him, religion prospered in Rumania and inter-Church relationships were easy.
Another boat took us from Prodromou to the skete of St Anne. From it we saw the most dramatic landscape Athos affords. In clefts of the vertical rock are the homes of anchorites, on the mountain slopes, granges and villages.
Our arrival at Nea Skete, round the headland from St Anne's, introduced us to the life of one of these extraordinary village communities. We turned up in time for the festal supper on the patronal feast day. More than 40 monks had gathered from their individual dwellings to partake of fish, eggs, salad, cheese, fruit and wine.
Here we met a monk who till recently ran a hippy-gear shop in Carnaby Street but it was not edifying to learn he had left behind an Irish Caholic wife and a nine-year-old son. He had distorted notions of Catholicism and highly idealised ones of Orthodoxy.
Around the next headland is Pavlou, cenobitic, and the house of which on the whole we had the best impression: not particularly young and not particularly reformed, but breathing an air of inherited goodness.
I had an interesting, if silent, encounter. As I was about to take a walk the gatekeeper signalled me to sit beside him on a stone bench. Shortly a most distinguished cortege of ecclesiastics approached. They numbered about 15, not elderly.
A few were laymen. Later a layman at Pantaleimenos, the almost deserted Russian house, told me it was a party led by the Bishop of Vladivostock, who wanted to send monks to maintain the Russian properties. I have not been able to confirm the report. The Greeks are suspicious of Russians, even monks.
At Gregoriou we were again in a house revived by a younger community from a populated island. One was a former Roman Catholic from Peru. Fr
Catholic worship in a school
Simon's experiences of
run by the religious had not impressed him.
This young man was tranquil, withdrawn but friendly, unambitious. He listed several obstacles to reunion, which include the Immaculate Conception, Papal Infallibility, and the Filioque clause. If Our Lady was without original sin, he said, she was not redeemed, and so was not a member of the Church.
Infallibility did not reside in any one person. He was impervious to any aspect of these doctrines which might have been less difficult for him. The points he made are, of course, ones the Church has had to consider.
Here the Abbot invited us to his room and gaVe us shell rosaries for the Jesus Prayer. He explained he had some hard things to say but that it was charity that made him say them.
It was his view that the whole world should accept the Byzantine rite. He had studied at an American Episcopalian college and had been shocked to see people kneeling on Sunday when we must all stand to celebrate the Lord's Resurrection.
High above Gregoriou is the much-photographed Simopetra, looking like a Tibetan monastery. This has been repeopled by a community of young monks from the Meteora, driven away by tourism. I was told that the liturgy, which might strike one as haphazard in some monasteries, resembled in orderliness and participation that of a Western monastery. Most of these young monks speak English.
The day of our departure from Athos (I did not visit Simopetra) a young man from an American Catholic monastery was to he rehaptised with a view to admission. Another house said to have a young and observant community is Philotheou. These young zealots arc said to be even more rigorous in their AthoniteOrthodox attitudes than older men.
I must mention that when we boarded the bus at Thessalonika on the way to Athos it was full of ecclesiastics we took to be monks rushing back for Easter. It turned out
they were a party of Bulgarian clergy, seculars and monks, on pilgrimage to Zographou, a house of Bulgarian tradition.
They were a very jolly crowd,
certainly anticipating paschal joy. One young monk told me he left his monastery on Sundays to play the organ in a Catholic church. We were ably to sing quite a repertoire of Latin antiphons together.
To sum up. Athos is anything but moribund. Ragged monks and empty buildings can be found, more than balanced by
evidence of new life, Consider
Also the interest from behind
the Iron Curtain.
Many young Greeks plod the paths from house to house.
That any ecumenical gesture would come out of Athos seems improbable. The Patriarch of Constantinople is the Holy Mountain's direct superior, but the late Patriarch Athenagoras had his name removed from the liturgy for his Western approaches — in some monasteries. If we move too far in certain directions Orthodox goodwill, where it appears, will never catch us u Yet Catholic nuns to whom I have spoken of Athos have been enthralled. I expected them to reject it as antiquarian and unreal, but they seemed to assimilate the fact which overcomes certain faults, that it is timeless and real. Maybe a day will come when we shall turn to Orthodoxy for what we have lost or thrown away.