Pilgrimage to Holy Mountain 32

32

Saint Anne’s Day:

Father Athanasius told me he would like me to help some of the monks prepare for the special celebration of Saint Anne’s Day at the monastery.

And so, a few days before the celebration, we “turned to” cleaning the church: sweeping, mopping, dusting and polishing it high and low. The church was not very big compared to some of the others on Holy Mountain but was sizable enough to keep a lively cleaning party busy for a couple of days.

The floor plan of the sanctuary is cruciform, I think it is called, but more of a square shape actually and without the extended nave of most other European churches. The central part of the church was topped by a high traditional Orthodox dome and there were big square pillars supporting the superstructure. The pillars and walls were covered with murals featuring life-sized full length portraits of historic Orthodox saints.

One of the branches of the X shaped room was filled by an elaborate altar with doors at the sides for priests to come and go, and polished individual wooden stalls lined the walls of the rest of the room. These stalls were for the monks to stand in during long services and the stalls were equipped with a small bench-like protuberance where a monk could rest part of his butt and get a little rest during the hours-long ceremonial rites.

On the morning of Saint Anne’s Day itself, we covered the floor of the sanctuary with sweet smelling leaves (bay leaves, if I remember correctly) and throughout the day guests from many other monasteries began to arrive.

I had been warned that the ceremony would start in the afternoon and last all night. The word was that if you wanted to get the full benefit of the ceremony you should spend as much time as possible in the church during the service, and, by all means stay up all night. This staying up all night was stressed so I thought I would try it.


The service was splendid. Gifted monk singers had been brought in and a tall, stately and stout high priest with a fluffy white beard-- dressed in a marvelous heavy-looking robe--officiated. He read and chanted with a beautiful rich bass voice, sometimes solo and sometimes with the choir. Other priests and monks took turns reading or chanting. Occasionally a monk swinging a billowing censor of incense would walk around the room leaving a haze of sweet smelling smoke.

The sanctuary was lit by dozens of candles and sometimes during the singing a monk would lower the main iron candelabra, brilliant with candles and suspended by a sturdy rope from a pulley at the center of the dome, to just above head height. Then, using a long pole, the monk would set it spinning in slow circles around the room. The motion would cause the candles to flare in the breeze creating a medieval “sound and light” show of hypnotic beauty.

The murals on the walls and ceiling and the robes and eyes of the celebrants reflected this marvelous torrent of light from their gilded, painted and living surfaces, blending art and life in a wonderful way.

I stood in one of the stalls for as long as I could and then went out to walk in the courtyard. I did this all night long as had been recommended, the only non-Orthodox witness of this extraordinary ritual.

The performance could not have been improved by an Hollywood impresario–the casting was perfect, the performance by all players magnificent. I have never seen nor will probably ever see better or more meaningful theater. The celebration communicated in some mysterious way a profound echo of the grandeur and splendor of a long departed age of faith!

Tomasito, 2009

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