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The Independent
14-05-2025
- The Independent
On Greece's Mount Athos, a cliffside monastery transcends country-based branches of Orthodoxy
The medieval monastery clings almost impossibly to sheer cliffs high above the shimmering turquoise of the Aegean Sea. Rising from the rugged granite rock, its walls enclose a diverse Christian Orthodox community. The Monastery of Simonos Petra, also known as Simonopetra — or Simon's Rock — transcends country-based branches of the Christian faith, embracing monks from across the world, including converts from nations where Orthodox Christianity is not the prevailing religion. The monastery is one of 20 in the autonomous all-male monastic community of Mount Athos, known in Greek as Agion Oros, or Holy Mountain. The peninsula in northern Greece is no stranger to non-Greeks: of the 20 monasteries, one is Russian, one is Bulgarian and one is Serbian, and the presence of monks from other nations is not unusual. But Simonos Petra has the greatest range of nationalities. Spirituality transcends borders 'Spiritually, there are no borders, because the Holy Mountain has an ecumenical nature' seeking to embrace all, said Archimandrite Eliseos, the abbot of Simonos Petra. This links back to the Byzantine Empire, Eliseos explained. 'We say that Byzantium was a commonwealth ... in which (different) peoples lived together in the same faith.' The monastery welcomes anyone who would like to visit — provided they are male. In a more than 1,000-year-old tradition, women are banned from the entire peninsula, which is deemed the Virgin Mary's domain. While men from other faiths can spend a few days at Mount Athos as visitors, only Orthodox men can become monks. Most of Simonos Petra's 65 monks hail from European countries where Orthodoxy is the predominant religion, such as Romania, Serbia, Russia, Moldova, Cyprus and Greece. But there are others from China, Germany, Hungary, the United States, Australia, France, Lebanon and Syria. Founded in the 13th century by Saint Simon the Myrrh-bearer, the seven-story Simonos Petra is considered an audacious marvel of Byzantine architecture. Renowned for its ecclesiastical choir, the monastery has become a symbol of resilience during its long history, recovering from three destructive fires — the most recent in the late 1800s — to embrace global Orthodoxy. A lifelong quest It was within these walls nearly 20 years ago that Father Isaiah — who like other monks goes by one name — found the answer to a lifelong spiritual quest that had spanned half the globe. Born in Vietnam to Chinese parents, the now 50-year-old monk grew up in Switzerland, where his family moved when he was a child. 'In this Swiss environment, I was trying to understand what I'm doing, where I'm going, what is the meaning of life,' he explained on a recent morning, standing on a fifth-floor balcony next to a winch used to bring supplies up from the monastery's storerooms in wicker baskets. 'While searching I found some answers through virtue, and this virtue was connected to the image of Orthodoxy,' he said, his fluent Greek bearing a hint of a foreign accent. Delving into this new faith, he found relationships based on love and a search for God, he said. His quest led him to an Orthodox monastery in France affiliated with Simonos Petra. That, in turn, led him to Mount Athos in 2006. 'It was in essence a deep searching of spiritual life, which is the answer for the meaning of life,' he said. Within the monastery, he found a brotherhood of monks from 14 countries. He decided to stay. 'We gather together with some principles, which are those of love towards our neighbor and the love for God,' Isaiah said. In the human and spiritual connections he experienced in Simonos Petras, 'I found a deep answer to everything I had been seeking in my youth.' Monastery life Life in the monastery — and across Mount Athos — has changed little in the more than 1,000 years of religious presence there. Days begin long before dawn and are punctuated by prayer services followed by daily tasks, which can include farming, carpentry, winemaking, cooking, art, clerical and ecclesiastical work. Set among forested slopes, nearly every inch of Simonos Petra's land is cultivated, with the monks tending to herbs, fruit and vegetables used in the monastery's kitchen. Electricity comes from sustainable sources such as solar panels. Embracing foreigners Father Serafeim, a Lebanese-Syrian who has lived in the monastery since 2010, said Eliseos and his predecessor as abbot, the Elder Emilianos, had always embraced foreigners. 'You don't feel that you're a stranger, you feel from the start that you're an equal member of the brotherhood,' said Serafeim, who joined the monastic community seven years after he first arrived in Greece to study theology in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. 'This spirit, this open spirit of the elder attracted many souls who were searching for a genuine, emphatic meaning of life,' he said. One of the oldest non-Greek monks in the monastery is Father Makarios. The Frenchman's spiritual quest began in May 1968, when as a young man he experienced first-hand the social uprising sparked by student demonstrations in Paris. His search led him to Mount Athos for the first time in 1975. 'I found this monastery and an embrace,' he said. 'I found people who understood and accepted me. They didn't judge me. It was very easy for me to decide that in the end, after I finish my studies, I will come to Mount Athos, I will try to see if I can become a monk.' Converting from Catholicism to Orthodoxy in Mount Athos, Makarios is now the monastery's librarian. He has been living in Simonos Petra for 46 years. All (men) are welcome Eliseos, the abbot, stresses his monastery is open to all visitors. 'We say we are open to people with love,' he says. 'Someone comes along and wants to visit Mount Athos, he visits it. … Does he want to take it further? We say: 'Let's discuss it, with your will'. What does he want? Does he want to participate in this life, does he want to enter into our spirit, embrace our values and our faith? We will accept that. We will not discriminate.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Associated Press
14-05-2025
- Associated Press
On Greece's Mount Athos, a cliffside monastery transcends country-based branches of Orthodoxy
MOUNT ATHOS, Greece (AP) — The medieval monastery clings almost impossibly to sheer cliffs high above the shimmering turquoise of the Aegean Sea. Rising from the rugged granite rock, its walls enclose a diverse Christian Orthodox community. The Monastery of Simonos Petra, also known as Simonopetra — or Simon's Rock — transcends country-based branches of the Christian faith, embracing monks from across the world, including converts from nations where Orthodox Christianity is not the prevailing religion. The monastery is one of 20 in the autonomous all-male monastic community of Mount Athos, known in Greek as Agion Oros, or Holy Mountain. The peninsula in northern Greece is no stranger to non-Greeks: of the 20 monasteries, one is Russian, one is Bulgarian and one is Serbian, and the presence of monks from other nations is not unusual. But Simonos Petra has the greatest range of nationalities. Spirituality transcends borders 'Spiritually, there are no borders, because the Holy Mountain has an ecumenical nature' seeking to embrace all, said Archimandrite Eliseos, the abbot of Simonos Petra. This links back to the Byzantine Empire, Eliseos explained. 'We say that Byzantium was a commonwealth ... in which (different) peoples lived together in the same faith.' The monastery welcomes anyone who would like to visit — provided they are male. In a more than 1,000-year-old tradition, women are banned from the entire peninsula, which is deemed the Virgin Mary's domain. While men from other faiths can spend a few days at Mount Athos as visitors, only Orthodox men can become monks. Most of Simonos Petra's 65 monks hail from European countries where Orthodoxy is the predominant religion, such as Romania, Serbia, Russia, Moldova, Cyprus and Greece. But there are others from China, Germany, Hungary, the United States, Australia, France, Lebanon and Syria. Founded in the 13th century by Saint Simon the Myrrh-bearer, the seven-story Simonos Petra is considered an audacious marvel of Byzantine architecture. Renowned for its ecclesiastical choir, the monastery has become a symbol of resilience during its long history, recovering from three destructive fires — the most recent in the late 1800s — to embrace global Orthodoxy. A lifelong quest It was within these walls nearly 20 years ago that Father Isaiah — who like other monks goes by one name — found the answer to a lifelong spiritual quest that had spanned half the globe. Born in Vietnam to Chinese parents, the now 50-year-old monk grew up in Switzerland, where his family moved when he was a child. 'In this Swiss environment, I was trying to understand what I'm doing, where I'm going, what is the meaning of life,' he explained on a recent morning, standing on a fifth-floor balcony next to a winch used to bring supplies up from the monastery's storerooms in wicker baskets. 'While searching I found some answers through virtue, and this virtue was connected to the image of Orthodoxy,' he said, his fluent Greek bearing a hint of a foreign accent. Delving into this new faith, he found relationships based on love and a search for God, he said. His quest led him to an Orthodox monastery in France affiliated with Simonos Petra. That, in turn, led him to Mount Athos in 2006. 'It was in essence a deep searching of spiritual life, which is the answer for the meaning of life,' he said. Within the monastery, he found a brotherhood of monks from 14 countries. He decided to stay. 'We gather together with some principles, which are those of love towards our neighbor and the love for God,' Isaiah said. In the human and spiritual connections he experienced in Simonos Petras, 'I found a deep answer to everything I had been seeking in my youth.' Monastery life Life in the monastery — and across Mount Athos — has changed little in the more than 1,000 years of religious presence there. Days begin long before dawn and are punctuated by prayer services followed by daily tasks, which can include farming, carpentry, winemaking, cooking, art, clerical and ecclesiastical work. Set among forested slopes, nearly every inch of Simonos Petra's land is cultivated, with the monks tending to herbs, fruit and vegetables used in the monastery's kitchen. Electricity comes from sustainable sources such as solar panels. Embracing foreigners Father Serafeim, a Lebanese-Syrian who has lived in the monastery since 2010, said Eliseos and his predecessor as abbot, the Elder Emilianos, had always embraced foreigners. 'You don't feel that you're a stranger, you feel from the start that you're an equal member of the brotherhood,' said Serafeim, who joined the monastic community seven years after he first arrived in Greece to study theology in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. 'This spirit, this open spirit of the elder attracted many souls who were searching for a genuine, emphatic meaning of life,' he said. One of the oldest non-Greek monks in the monastery is Father Makarios. The Frenchman's spiritual quest began in May 1968, when as a young man he experienced first-hand the social uprising sparked by student demonstrations in Paris. His search led him to Mount Athos for the first time in 1975. 'I found this monastery and an embrace,' he said. 'I found people who understood and accepted me. They didn't judge me. It was very easy for me to decide that in the end, after I finish my studies, I will come to Mount Athos, I will try to see if I can become a monk.' Converting from Catholicism to Orthodoxy in Mount Athos, Makarios is now the monastery's librarian. He has been living in Simonos Petra for 46 years. All (men) are welcome Eliseos, the abbot, stresses his monastery is open to all visitors. 'We say we are open to people with love,' he says. 'Someone comes along and wants to visit Mount Athos, he visits it. … Does he want to take it further? We say: 'Let's discuss it, with your will'. What does he want? Does he want to participate in this life, does he want to enter into our spirit, embrace our values and our faith? We will accept that. We will not discriminate.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Hagia Sophia restoration to protect 1,500-year-old Unesco ‘masterpiece'
Standing beneath the stone archways, grand murals and filagree lamps of the Hagia Sophia, the architect Hasan Fırat Diker reflects on his vocation: the protection of a fragile structure that is both Turkey's grandest mosque and perhaps its most contentious building. He is overseeing some of the most intense restoration and preservation works in the Hagia Sophia's nearly 1,500-year history, including efforts to strengthen its grand central dome and protect it from earthquakes. 'We are not just responsible for this building but to the entire world public,' Diker said, gesturing at the crowds of visitors kneeled on the plush turquoise carpets or gazing at the murals of feathered seraphim. He pointed up at the gold mosaic and blue mural interior of the main dome, what he describes as one of the many 'unsolved problems' of the Hagia Sophia's design. The imposing structure, first built in AD537 under the Byzantine (or eastern Roman) empire, is visibly uneven in places, in particular the grand dome, which for hundreds of years has sat perched atop four columns of different dimensions. The entire building is a patchwork of repairs after the collapse of the original dome in an earthquake in 558 plus several of the surrounding half-domes in later tremors. The Hagia Sophia still bears features from when it was one of the world's grandest cathedrals before its conversion into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1453 of what was then Constantinople. Transformed into a museum under the Turkish republic in 1935, a Turkish court controversially reclassified it as a mosque five years ago. The decision sparked fierce criticism, including from Unesco, which called the Hagia Sophia 'an architectural masterpiece' and said the decision to reclassify it undermined 'the universal nature of its heritage'. Diker's role, alongside other architects, engineers and art historians appointed by the Turkish authorities, will be to conduct the most extensive restoration works in years. The team will remove the lead covering the main dome and look for ways to strengthen the fragile joints between the semi-domes and the main cupola in order to prevent earthquake damage. They will also examine the four supporting pillars and parts of the structure below ground. 'This may be one of the greatest restorations of the current period in Turkey,' Diker said. Their mission only proved more pressing when last month a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Istanbul, causing buildings across the city to tremble. Diker immediately rushed from his office to peer at the mosque's interior and inspect for damage. Turkey sits atop two fault lines, making it extremely susceptible to earthquakes, which can prove deadly when combined with infrastructure issues. Two powerful earthquakes that struck the country's south-east in early 2023 killed more than 53,000 people, and destruction covering the size of Germany was blamed on widespread corruption in the construction industry. Istanbul, a city of 16 million people, densely packed older buildings and architectural wonders, reckons daily with fears of the next large quake. 'In the most terrifying scenario, an earthquake will shake the entire structure,' Diker said. 'The main arch connecting the main dome and semi-domes could tremble and there might be cracks that occur.' An earthquake could also jolt the minaret into the domes, or cause the arches to collapse entirely. Diker gestured to trace the arc between the two squat domes either side of the grand central dome as he pointed to patchworks of three separate periods of restoration and repair since the sixth century. 'For the moment, we will deal with the outer surfaces, the minarets and the main dome. We will better understand after removing the dome's lead covering,' he said. 'These reconstructions over different periods created layers of buildup on the dome's surface … we know at the moment it's not a perfect sphere due to the multiple interventions. The problem is not the dome itself but what is holding it up – for now. But when we uncover it we will better see the cracks.' The team will peel back hundreds of years of the building's history to look at how to strengthen the structure. They are also hoping to uncover hidden murals from Hagia Sophia's time as an Ottoman mosque that may lie beneath some of its gold and yellow surfaces. The restoration works have no set timetable, and the scaffolding soon to cover the interior is intended to allow for business as usual, while a specially designed cover will protect the fragile exposed surface of the dome from rain or intense heat. 'We need to care for the comfort of our visitors,' Diker said. 'Those who come here should be able to see as much of the Hagia Sophia as they can despite the restoration.'
