By COSTAS KANTOURIS
MOUNT ATHOS, Greece (AP) — The medieval monastery clings nearly impossibly to sheer cliffs excessive above the shimmering turquoise of the Aegean Sea. Rising from the rugged granite rock, its partitions enclose a various Christian Orthodox group.
The Monastery of Simonos Petra, also called Simonopetra — or Simon’s Rock — transcends country-based branches of the Christian religion, embracing monks from internationally, together with converts from nations the place Orthodox Christianity isn’t the prevailing faith.
The monastery is certainly one of 20 within the autonomous all-male monastic group of Mount Athos, recognized in Greek as Agion Oros, or Holy Mountain. The peninsula in northern Greece isn’t any stranger to non-Greeks: of the 20 monasteries, one is Russian, one is Bulgarian and one is Serbian, and the presence of monks from different nations isn’t uncommon. However Simonos Petra has the best vary of nationalities.
Spirituality transcends borders
“Spiritually, there are not any borders, as a result of the Holy Mountain has an ecumenical nature” searching for to embrace all, stated Archimandrite Eliseos, the abbot of Simonos Petra. This hyperlinks again to the Byzantine Empire, he defined. “We are saying that Byzantium was a commonwealth … wherein (totally different) peoples lived collectively in the identical religion.”
The monastery welcomes anybody who want to go to — supplied they’re male. In a greater than 1,000-year-old custom, ladies are banned from your entire peninsula, which is deemed the Virgin Mary’s area. Whereas males from different faiths can spend a number of days at Mount Athos as guests, solely Orthodox males can turn out to be monks.
Most of Simonos Petra’s 65 monks hail from European nations the place Orthodoxy is the predominant faith, akin to Romania, Serbia, Russia, Moldova, Cyprus and Greece. However there are others from China, Germany, Hungary, the US, Australia, France, Lebanon and Syria.
Based within the thirteenth century by Saint Simon the Myrrh-bearer, the seven-story Simonos Petra is taken into account an audacious marvel of Byzantine structure. Famend for its ecclesiastical choir, the monastery has turn out to be a logo of resilience throughout its lengthy historical past, recovering from three harmful fires — the latest within the late 1800s — to embrace international Orthodoxy.
A lifelong quest
It was inside these partitions almost 20 years in the past that Father Isaiah — who like different monks goes by one identify — discovered the reply to a lifelong religious quest that had spanned half the globe.
Born in Vietnam to Chinese language mother and father, the now 50-year-old monk grew up in Switzerland, the place his household moved when he was a baby.
“On this Swiss surroundings, I used to be attempting to grasp what I’m doing, the place I’m going, what’s the which means of life,” he defined on a current morning, standing on a fifth-floor balcony subsequent to a winch used to carry provides up in wicker baskets from the monastery’s storerooms.
“Whereas looking I discovered some solutions by way of advantage, and this advantage was linked to the picture of Orthodoxy,” he stated, his fluent Greek bearing a touch of a overseas accent.
Delving into this new religion, he discovered relationships primarily based on love and a seek for God, he stated. His quest led him to an Orthodox monastery in France affiliated with Simonos Petra. That, in flip, led him to Mount Athos in 2006.
“It was in essence a deep looking of religious life, which is the reply for the which means of life,” he stated.
Throughout the monastery, he discovered a brotherhood of monks from 14 nations. He determined to remain.
“We collect along with some ideas, that are these of affection in direction of our neighbor and the love for God,” Isaiah stated. Within the human and religious connections he skilled in Simonos Petras, “I discovered a deep reply to every thing I had been searching for in my youth.”
Monastery life
Life within the monastery — and throughout Mount Athos — has modified little within the greater than 1,000 years of non secular presence there. Days start lengthy earlier than daybreak and are punctuated by prayer companies adopted by day by day duties, which may embody farming, carpentry, winemaking, cooking, artwork, clerical and ecclesiastical work.
Set amongst forested slopes, almost each inch of Simonos Petra’s land is cultivated, with the monks tending to herbs, fruit and greens used within the monastery’s kitchen. Electrical energy comes from sustainable sources akin to photo voltaic panels.
Embracing foreigners
Father Serafeim, a Lebanese-Syrian who has lived within the monastery since 2010, stated Eliseos and his predecessor as abbot, the Elder Emilianos, had at all times embraced foreigners.
“You don’t really feel that you simply’re a stranger, you are feeling from the beginning that you simply’re an equal member of the brotherhood,” stated Serafeim, who joined the monastic group seven years after he first arrived in Greece to check theology within the northern metropolis of Thessaloniki.
“This spirit, this open spirit of the elder attracted many souls who had been looking for a real, emphatic which means of life,” he stated.
One of many oldest non-Greek monks within the monastery is Father Makarios. The Frenchman’s religious quest started in Might 1968, when as a younger man he skilled first-hand the social rebellion sparked by pupil demonstrations in Paris.
His search led him to Mount Athos for the primary time in 1975.
“I discovered this monastery and an embrace,” he stated. “I discovered individuals who understood and accepted me. They didn’t choose me. It was very simple for me to determine that ultimately, after I end my research, I’ll come to Mount Athos, I’ll attempt to see if I can turn out to be a monk.”
Changing from Catholicism to Orthodoxy on Mount Athos, Makarios is now the monastery’s librarian. He has been residing in Simonos Petra for 46 years.
All (males) are welcome
Eliseos, the abbot, stresses his monastery is open to all guests.
“We are saying we’re open to folks with love,” he says. “Somebody comes alongside and needs to go to Mount Athos, he visits it. … Does he need to take it additional? We are saying: ‘Let’s focus on it, together with your will’. What does he need? Does he need to take part on this life, does he need to enter into our spirit, embrace our values and our religion? We’ll settle for that. We is not going to discriminate.”
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