Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
MOUNT ATHOS TIME
The traditional Byzantine
daily schedule
observed on Athos is somewhat disorienting. On the
northeast side of the peninsula the “12 o'clock” position on monastery clocks indicates neither
noon nor midnight but sunrise, whereas on the opposite side of Athos it coincides with sunset.
Yet Vatopedhíou, the largest monastery, keeps “worldly” time, as do most monks' wristwatches,
and in many monasteries two wall clocks are mounted side by side, one showing secular, the
other “Byzantine” time. However, the
Julian calendar
, a fortnight behind the outside world, is
observed throughout Athos. Bedtime is shortly after sunset and in the small hours your hosts
will awake for solitary meditation and study, followed by
órthros
, or matins. Around sunrise there
is another quiet period, just before the
akolouthía
, or main liturgy, that precedes the morning
meal. The rest of the day is devoted to manual labour until the
esperinós
, or vespers, followed
immediately by the afternoon meal and the short
apódhipno
, or compline service.
visit is strongly recommended; this requires a
permit
(see p.306) which can be easily
arranged in Thessaloníki. In addition to the religious and architectural aspects of Athos,
it should be added that the peninsula remains one of the most beautiful parts of
Greece. For many visitors, this - as much as the experience of monasticism - is the
highlight of time spent on the Holy Mountain.
Brief history
he
development of monasticism
on Athos is a matter of some controversy, and
foundation legends abound. The most popular asserts that the
Virgin Mary
was blown
ashore here on her way to Cyprus. The earliest historical reference to Athonite monks is
to their attendance at a council of the Empress Theodora in 843; probably there were
some monks here by the end of the seventh century. In 885 an edict of Emperor Basil I
recognized Athos as the sole preserve of monks, and gradually hermits came together to
form communities known in church Greek as
koinobia
(literally “common life”). The
year 963 is the traditional date for the
foundation of the first monastery
, Meyístis
Lávras, by Athanasios the Athonite, largely financed by Emperor Nikiforos Fokas. Over
the next two centuries foundations were frequent, the monasteries reaching forty in
number, alongside many smaller communities.
Troubles for Athos began at the end of the eleventh century. The monasteries suffered
sporadically from pirate raids and from the settlement of three hundred Vlach shepherd
families on the mountain. After a reputedly scandalous episode between the monks and
the shepherdesses, the Vlachs were ejected and a new imperial edict was issued,
confirming that
no female
mammal, human or animal, be allowed to set foot on Athos.
This edict, called the
ávaton
, remains in force today, excepting cats to control rodents.
During the twelfth century, the monasteries gained an international - or at least, a
pan-Orthodox
- aspect, as Romanian, Russian and Serbian monks flocked to the
mountain in retreat from the turbulence of the age, although the peninsula itself was
subject to raids by Franks and Catalans over the next two centuries. After the fall of the
Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans, the fathers wisely declined to resist, maintaining
good relations with the early sultans, one of whom paid a state visit.
The mountain's real decline came after the early nineteenth-century
War of
Independence
, in which many of the monks fought alongside the Greek
revolutionary
forces but paid the price when Macedonia was easily subdued. This led to a permanent
Turkish garrison and the first drastic reduction in the monastic population, which did
not increase even when Macedonia returned to Greece in 1912. The Athonite fathers,
however, resisted diluting the Greek nature of the Holy Mountain with too many
foreign (mainly Russian) monks. By the early 1960s numbers were at their lowest, barely
a thousand, compared to 20,000 in Athos's heyday. Today, however, the monastic
population has climbed to about two thousand, its average age has dropped significantly
and the number of well-educated monks has increased markedly. While Athos remains a
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