Home
Thank you for your kind inquiry concerning my recent pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain, and of course for your prayers. The trip was very fruitful indeed, for which of course Deo gratias. My son went with me, and we had a spiritually nourishing, if physically exhausting, week hiking every day and staying in seven different monasteries. I kept a journal, and my plan is to compose a short narrative (with a few photographs) for posting as a new page on this weblog. You might want to look for that in a month or so.
The primary aim of the trip, as I am sure you will understand, was to breathe the atmosphere of this ancient and holy place: to steep ourselves in the exquisitely beautiful Liturgies, venerate the numerous wonder-working icons and relics, and revel in some of the most breath-taking scenery anywhere in the world. But yes, there were also a number of opportunities for informative and stimulating conversations with some of the fathers we met concerning their monastic pattern of life and the practice of hesychia.
As for what you called “the degree of intellectuality” on the Mountain, this is rather difficult for me to assess after so short a stay, and I would not wish to judge whether the brightest of the monks we talked to were jnanins or simply very intelligent and erudite bhaktas. In such an ambience, where the very rocks themselves are imbued with the many centuries of prayer, it seems to me that this distinction actually makes little difference, knowledge and love becoming one at their summit.
Yes, there is a distinct strain of “fundamentalism” in certain monasteries, notably Esphigmenou—or so I am told, though we did not visit there. On the other hand the spiritual ethos of Simonopetra, where we did spend some time, is clearly much more supple and open, the now ailing former abbot and elder, Aimilianos, having been by all accounts much more upayic than Pharisaical in his dealings with his disciples.