Mt. Athos: Day One

Mark and I arrived in Dafni, Athos' main port, in mid-morning and immediately started walking to Simonas Petras, our first monastery. The walk took us along the sea and through the rolling hillside until we finally turned a bend and saw both the monastery and the mountain before us.

As you can see, Simonas Petras appears to grow organically straight out of the rock pillar it's perched on. In many ways it looks like the monasteries of Meteora, but without the tourist hubbub surrounding them.

Supposedly, you need reservations at every monastery you plan on staying at. We'd had bad luck with reaching the monasteries by phone (the monks aren't exactly just sitting around waiting for your call) and I couldn't quite navigate the intricacy of writing a fax in Greek. However, when we arrived the monk arhondaris or guestmaster, smiled warmly and told us we were more than welcome. Then he brought out the traditional Athonite offering of hospitality for each of us, a glass of cold water, a piece of loukoumi (the sweet that we call Turkish Delight), and a shot of tsipouro (a Greek liquor like ouzo).

This was one of the most striking things about Athos. First, that monks were encouraging us to take a shot of hard liquor before noon. But more importantly, the incredible hospitality. We stayed with the monks of Simonas Petras, ate our meals with them, discussed Orthodoxy and philosophy, they even gave us gifts to take home and they didn't want anything in return. It's such a departure from the modern experience that it almost felt like a trick. 

Inside the monastery on the balcony outside our room.

While staying at each monastery, you live the life of the monks. The monks eat two meals a day, a larger meal in mid-morning and a smaller meal in the morning. Both meals were made with fresh vegetables and fruits from the monasteries' gardens and both were vegan since we visited during Lent. 

Our schedule at Simonas Petras involved waking up at 3:30 a.m. and walking under the stars to morning vespers. We then listened to the monks chanting and reading for several hours before a Greek-American monk, Father Maximus, took us on a tour of the monastery's inner library and showed us a collection of precious 500-year-old religious texts. 

Personally, talking with Father Maximus was the highlight of my trip. His obvious intellect and enthusiasm were infectious and he spoke about everything from his favorite translation of The Illiad to architecture in Bhutan. We later found out that before becoming a monk he was a professor of theology at Harvard. As you'd expect in a humble monk, he hadn't mentioned it in our discussion.

Finding out about his past life gave special resonance to a remark he'd made that stuck in my mind. Father Maximus told us that one of the chief appeals of the monastic life was its holistic nature. Paraphrasing his namesake, St. Maximus, he said "The knowledge of fire does not keep one warm." Maximus told us that in his mind, the fact that someone could be "an expert" in philosophy or theology but still lead a profoundly immoral life was completely backwards. For the monks, knowledge is only useful when it's applied. 

Another highlight of our visit to Simonas Petras was walking around the grounds, beautifully terraced fields on the side of the mountain. 

The monastery looks far bigger than it is because the rock on which it's built is pyramidal and takes up much of the interior space. On the lower floors, you can actually touch the rock as it juts into the rooms.

Walking to the services or the refectory in such an old building is remarkable. It's amazing to think that Simonas Petras is still completely in use and not just a museum piece or historic site.

The views from the monastery out over the ocean are mind-blowing. So much so that at sunset, we weren't the only ones who wanted to take a photo...