Pilgrimage to Holy Mountain p 38

38.

Fire on the Mountain:

A small wildfire had been burning on the eastern side of Holy Mountain for weeks when I first arrived at Saint Anne’s.

Monks from all the monasteries around the peninsula had joined to battle the blaze as well as they could but the fire had spread and come over the ridge which forms the backbone of the province. The fire had become a conflagration, broken through their lines and was finally advancing on Simonopetra. The path from Simonopetra to Saint Anne’s that I had walked just the previous day was now closed.

Though there are few roads and almost no vehicles on Holy Mountain, the monks have radiotelephones, fast motorboats and some modern firefighting equipment; but this fire was out of control and getting closer by the hour. We could see red light in the sky from the awesome blaze at night and when the wind was blowing toward us from the direction of the fire the air was filled with ash particles and smoke.

Before he left to personally assist fighting the fire, Father Athanasius asked all of us to pray that the fire would stop before it destroyed Simonopetra. He told us that the monks there had vowed to stay in their cliff-top aerie and fight to the end. They would die fighting the fire, rather than surrender their monastery and its sacred artifacts to the flames.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons the Guest Master had been so curt with me. Perhaps he knew the fire was coming and wanted me to move right along because he thought that the presence of an infidel might lessen their chances of survival.

I was awake and outside before dawn the next morning to pray as requested, but I believe I was the only person at Saint Anne’s to witness an amazing formation of clouds roil silently down from the top of Holy Mountain.

Strange swirling clouds, lit first only by fire and moonlight and then by the pinks and gold of dawn, were twisting together like tremendous writhing snakes. A most awful sight— it looked more like a Hollywood special effects “miracle” than anything natural I have ever seen. But by the time the other men at Saint Anne’s were awake and out, the cloudy sky had returned to normal.

When Father Athanasius returned later in the day, he said that early in the morning the wind had suddenly shifted and the neighboring monastery was saved. The fire had died out after barely scorching the wooden balconies on the cliff side of Simonopetra.

Tomasito, 2009



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