Pilgrimage to Holy Mountain 3

On Agion Oros: Holy Mountain, Greece



By Tomasito “Brother Pilgrim”

Somewhere in Belgium: night train from Munich to Ostend. Desultory, weary conversation with a bearded young Austrian sitting beside me. He asks about my reason to be traveling and I mention my determination to be on top of Midsummer Hill in England on Midsummer eve. He remarks that if I am interested in things spiritual I would probably like to visit Holy Mountain in Greece some day. He says it is very unusual and an absolute must for a man interested in pilgrimage. We part in the Ostend terminal but he has planted a seed.
Years later I make my pilgrimage to Agion Oros, Holy Mountain.

On the northeastern coast of Greece, a peninsula with three finger-like extensions reaches out into the Aegean Sea. The Easternmost of these fingers is Agion Oros, Holy Mountain Province. Physically a part of Greece, Holy Mountain is an autonomous Greek province governed by the Greek Orthodox Church and populated exclusively by males. Females and children are strictly forbidden. According to historic tradition, no woman, girl or even young male child has set foot on the territory of Holy Mountain for more than a thousand years. (Though a few female refugees were permitted for a short period during the Greek Civil War.) Does this seem strange to you liberated twenty-first century women? Well, it is a strange place, but interesting, as they say.

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