Four
When Constantinople, the Christian city that had once been the Eastern capitol of the Roman Empire, fell to Islam in 1453, much of the movable property valued by the fleeing Christians: books, icons, precious relics of saints and so forth, was carted off by the faithful to nearby Agion Oros (Holy Mountain) where the access was difficult and the treasures could be more easily defended from sacrilege or destruction.
These last treasures of the Byzantine Empire are still preserved on Holy Mountain by dedicated, devout, sometimes chauvinistic and even militant monks--but a lucky and determined male pilgrim may still see some of them preserved in one of the twenty or so functioning monasteries which survive there today.
The pilgrim can view the “holy” mountain too, of course, which rises near the tip of the finger, and a splendidly picturesque, if not very lofty, peak it is.
As I have said, women are not permitted; but in the Orthodox Christian tradition, a woman can gain spiritual merit by persuading some man to undertake a pilgrimage to the holy place for her as a proxy. A female friend of mine, a Greek Orthodox American living in California, asked me to undertake the pilgrimage in her behalf and I did. Well, why not? I had a lifetime to spare and nothing else of importance to do.
Another woman friend in Germany gave me a venerable bicycle for the trip from Bavaria and so, with just a five-word Greek vocabulary; the words of the traditional “Jesus Prayer” (Kyrie Jesu Christe eleson mas) and the empty pockets of a traditional pilgrim, I set off from Bad Feilnbach, Germany, to make my pilgrimage. I hope both of these dear women got some spiritual points from the cosmic scorekeeper. I certainly got the experience.
Tomasito, 2009
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