Dean Christakos

My first stop was Xenophontos monastery, a monastery on the west coast of Athos peninsula and home to a few Americans who visited the place at one point in their lives and decided to stay. Keep in mind that a little more than 100 people per day are allowed into Mt. Athos for a period of 4 days. Given that there are about 20 monasteries on the peninsula, that means that each monastery has about 20 people visiting it on a given day. Since Xenophontos is one of the first stops after the dock at Ouranopolis, the place is a busy monastery for people either making their first stop after arriving or their last stop before leaving Mt. Athos.

Within Xenophontos is a large main church where services are held:

One interesting feature is a wooden plank found hanging at almost all monasteries which is banged on with a mallet to annouce the beginning of services held during the day:

Why the wooden plank? Well, (this is true) when the Turks occupied Greece for 500 years, it was decreed, like all other places where Islamic kingdoms dominated, that churches could no longer ring bells, perhaps because their ringing overshadowded the Muslim calls to prayer. As a substitute, the churches and monasteries resorted to hitting a wooden plank with a mallet to announce to the faithful that prayers are beginning. While the monasteries at Mt. Athos now have and ring bells again, the tradition of using the wooden plank still remains. As an example, here is a picture of a monk in Jerusalem announcing the beginning of prayers (source):

A 30 minute walk away on a small path through the forest is Dochiariou monastery, a place known for its hardworking monks, including this one taking a break on a hot day from working in the woodshop:

That was where I spent my second night on Mt. Athos, and I'll follow up on that in a weblog entry tomorrow...