Agion Oros - Mount Athos

Day Six: Monday, 18 June — Prodromos to Agia Anna (Saint Anne) — The “Desert” Up at 5:00 a.m., we entered the porch of the  catholikon  at about 5:15 in almost total darkness. Stepping unexpectedly backward to make way for the priest, who was just coming out to cense the icons, I nearly crushed a poor monk who was prostrate to the left of the door—and I doubtless would have done so had Trevor not pushed me back just in the knick of time! After a breakfast of fresh fruit and delicious bread—several slices of which, together with a few apricots and some halva, Father Gabriel had kindly packed for our lunch—we said goodbye to the Forerunner about 7:30. The first half hour or so was spent retracing our steps back up the road  to the main path we had taken yesterday coming over from the Great Lavra. Here we filled our water bottles at a small  spring —where we were briefly joined by a canine traveling companion—and then began our trek in the direction of the Skete of ...

The Dormition of The Most Holy Theotokos was celebrated with devoutness and grandeur at the Holy Monastery of Iveron - Mount Athos.  We should mention that His Grace the Metropolitan of Langadas, Bishop John  lead the Holy Liturgy, along with Abbot Nathanael and numerous Preists and Deacons.  Information obtained by  Romfea.gr mentioned that over 2000 pilgrims attended the Monastery's feast day to pay their respects to The Most Holy Theotokos. Listed below are exclusive photos taken of the feast day at the Holy Monastery of Iveron: Source: http://www.romfea.gr

Below are some photos of the cemetery chapel of St. Demetrios of the Holy Monastery of Stavronikita, Mount Athos. In the summer months, daily liturgies are held in this chapel after the orthros is held in the Catholicon. It has surviving fragments of frescoes from the 18th century and has recently been renovated, as you will see below. In the new extension of the chapel, the frescoes were painted by the monks Zosimas & Prodromos of Stavronikita. The following black and white photos were taken by Millet in the years between  1914 - 1918.  The following photo shows the extension to the original chapel complete and the gate partially done. This photo was taken by Thodoris Lakiotis in 2006. And finally, the gate complete! It looks amazing! I took the below photo in July 2008. I must make mention to the works that are carried out and commissioned by the monks in order to restore these chapels which form part of our tradition and monastic culture. These brotherhood...

Below are some photos of the water fountain at the Holy Monastery of Iveron which dates back to 1735. It is made of white marble with very high quality carvings. One of the many treasures of the Holy Mountain For the full desription in Greek see: http://agioritikesmnimes.pblogs.gr/2010/06/638280.html

A quality video with some beautiful chanting in Bulgarian.

A strange osmosis takes place when you write the life of another person. After Bruce Chatwin died, his widow Elizabeth gave me the maté gourd that he had taken with him on his travels, together with its silver bombilla – the metal straw through which he sucked his addictive tea, like any Argentine farmhand. At times over the next seven years, I had the sudden deep conviction that I was absorbing the world through his perforated silver straw. In the course of following Chatwin’s songline, I met his family and friends – some of whom became my friends. In Birmingham, I had tea with the charlady responsible for dusting the contents of his grandmother’s cabinet, including the scrap of giant sloth that had formed the genesis for  In Patagonia . “It used to put the creeps up on me, an old bit of blacky, browny bristly stuff as didn’t look very nice at all… I thought it was only monkey fur.” In 1991, I drove with Elizabeth from Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego, to the cave on  Last H...

By Rev Fr Chris Flesoras The long-haul portion of our trip abroad is over: we’ve made it to Munich, and after eleven hours crammed into the steerage section of a Lufthansa Airbus 340, the ability to walk about and breathe fresh air is sweet indeed.  The first time I flew Lufthansa, four years ago, it seemed like the air carrier of my dreams: it was at the end of a month of air travel within Africa, from South African Airways at best—the equal of any Western airline—to RwandAir and Zambian National at worst, with Kenya Airways and Ethiopian somewhere in between.  Boarding the Addis Ababa-Cairo-Frankfurt flight, on a Lufthansa 747, was like reentering civilization.  No one was fighting for seats, there were no mosquitos in the cabin, and there was no visible material decay on the aircraft.  I fell in love with Lufthansa right then—not for taking me away from Africa, which I love (and would twice return to), but for reminding me that air travel need not be an exercise ...