Pilgrimage to Mount Athos

Mount Athos is celebrated for many reasons: for its incomparable natural beauty, for its distinctive monastic architecture, for its priceless treasures of Byzantine art, for its enduring spiritual traditions; but it is perhaps best known as the principal focus of pilgrimage in the Eastern Orthodox world. For more than a thousand years its monasteries and sketes have welcomed guests to their precincts, each one of whom should be treated as if he were Christ Himself. Since the time of St Benedict (sixth century) emphasis has been placed on hospitality as one of the most important monastic virtues, a virtue that was exercised perhaps even more fervently in the west during the first millennium. Different chapters here examine the exercise of that virtue both from the point of view of a monk and that of a pilgrim. Athos is also famous as a male preserve and there are good reasons for that in the monastic tradition. This book, which includes three chapters written by women, looks at all aspects of the Athonite pilgrimage experience, including the option for women that is now available at the nearby dependency of Ormylia.

Nor are all the contributors Orthodox. Athos has always attracted a minority of non-Orthodox pilgrims. Some may come for the first time purely out of curiosity; others come more regularly in order to experience something they find there that is lacking in their home spiritual environment. There are even some who come so often that eventually they are faced with the question of whether to become Orthodox. Those who aspire to be received into Orthodoxy on the Mountain itself (exclusively by baptism) are subjected to a rigorous course of catechesis which is profoundly challenging but ultimately richly rewarding.

At what point does a visit become a pilgrimage? No doubt everyone will give a different answer to the question, and the underlying (if unvoiced) response is deeply personal. Perhaps we can agree that there is a sliding scale. Some will suddenly realize, perhaps after returning even the first time, that they have made a pilgrimage; others will require a few more visits, a few more conversations. It also varies according to the visitor’s/pilgrim’s background. Athos claims to be open to everyone, but it is surely more open to some than to others. Those who come from an Orthodox background will be less surprised by some of its manifestations than those who do not. I am thinking, for example, of the length of the services, the veneration of icons and relics, the rhythm of life, etc. Athos rightly claims also to be a beacon of pan-Orthodoxy, and so it is; but there is no denying that it is also profoundly Greek. Greek is the common language in most of the monasteries; the great majority of pilgrims also are Greek. Those coming from a non-Orthodox, especially a non-Greek, background may therefore find themselves more at home in the non-Greek monasteries, where everyone is to some extent an ‘outsider’. But as Sister Magdalen notes, ‘the etymology of “pilgrimage” implies a journey to a place where one is a foreigner.’ Nor is a pilgrimage intended to be comfortable. If anything, it should shake us out of our comfort zone and make us ask why we are here.

It should, however, be accepted that Athos is not necessarily to everyone’s taste. Many go for a first visit and feel that once is enough. They have seen what it is like; they may or may not like what they saw; they may feel no reason to go again. We hope they may still feel sufficiently interested by their experience to want to read what the contributors to this volume have to say. Many points of view are represented here, and it is to be hoped that at least some of them will strike a chord with their readers.

Some readers of course may not yet have had the chance to visit the Holy Mountain. Let us hope that they may be sufficiently intrigued by what they find in these pages that they decide to try it for themselves. And if they are reluctant to commit themselves to a first visit on the ground, they can always avail themselves of a ‘floating pilgrimage’, such as is described by Veronica della Dora at the end of her chapter.

Certain aspects of life on the Holy Mountain may well be baffling or even off-putting to a first-time pilgrim. Chris Thomas is unashamedly honest about his first experience as a path-clearer. But all credit to him: he persevered; he rose to the challenge; and now he cannot keep away. Not many people will react so passionately, either so negatively or so positively; but it is interesting that the Mountain can bring out such strong feelings in its visitors. It is perhaps not a place for half-measures or for the faint-hearted. Equally moving, in a very different way, and equally frank is the penultimate chapter, by Metropolitan Nikolaos. Not for the first time he gives full rein to his imagination as he describes his relationship with the Mountain, while his prose ascends almost to poetry.

The conference at which most of these papers were delivered had to be postponed more than once because of the Covid pandemic that affected the whole world in 2020–2. Even the Mountain was not untouched by its ruthless advance; several monasteries lost members of their brotherhood; and for a while the fathers had to close their borders to visitors from outside. As we write, certain precautions are still in place and some houses are understandably wary of admitting large numbers of pilgrims at any one time. The sudden and total absence of pilgrims provided the fathers with an opportunity to take stock and consider if they had previously been admitting too many guests. Abbot Methodios of Hilandar has some interesting reflections on this, and it could be that in future greater attention will need to be paid to the quota system. Small brotherhoods cannot allow themselves to be overwhelmed; if they do, the pilgrims risk destroying the very thing that their pilgrimage seeks to find. The statistics for numbers of pilgrims entering the Mountain in recent years as quoted by René Gothóni in his paper are deeply disturbing. In such circumstances perhaps less is more.

This was the first residential conference that the Friends of Mount Athos had held without the presence of our beloved late Metropolitan Kallistos (1934–2022). He was present at some of the early meetings when the committee began to make plans for the programme. Sadly his repose in August 2022 meant that he did not live to see them realized. But of course he was with us in spirit, and his photograph presided over the proceedings. His deep love of the Mountain is evident in all the addresses that he gave at previous conferences, never more so than in the paper he gave in 2015, the conference that was held in honour of his own eightieth birthday. It therefore seemed appropriate that it should be repeated, both at the conference itself and in the published proceedings. It is therefore printed here without any alterations and the volume is of course dedicated to his eternal memory.