HIGH SPIRITS: Mount Athos Time

...The Tibetan city of Lhasa, even though its inhabitants have been isolated and persecuted by the Chinese authorities for decades, retains its high sanctity for Buddhists...

...and Cherubim hymns are mind numbing or blowing, according to your point of view...

...Among Muslims, Mecca and Medina have been sacred places ever since the Prophet Mohammed lived and preached in them...

...So as part of this quest I recently spent a week on Mount Athos, the least known but most disciplined of the Christian world's religious capitals...

...Inside the Katholicon or main church of the monastery, a visiting pilgrim is soon into the swing of the complicated choreography and beautiful chanting that is at the heart of all Orthodox services on Mount Athos...

...As he talked of the need to fight spiritual battles with patient prayer and fasting in order to win victories for the Lord, it seemed to me that he had something in common with the holy men in Rome who have recently been burying and electing popes...

...Youneed a special passport issued by the office of the Holy Executive at Ouranopolis (City of Heaven), the sole port of embarkation to the Monastic Republic of Athos, which is a 36-mile long by 9-mile wide peninsula of the Thessaloniki province of northern Greece...

...JUNE 2005 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 55...

...and impossible if you are a woman...

...Your High Spirits columnist is intrigued by the question of whether a human soul's search for internal holiness can be inspired by visiting physical locations with historic reputations for external holiness...

...This is a wooden board that gets pounded with a sledgehammer to announce that a service will shortly begin...

...At first I was as irritated by the extraordinary length of the morning services as a Northern senator would be at having to sit through a Southern filibuster...

...For Mount Athos is an all-male community of 3,000 residents who keep strict monastic disciplines in matters like attendance at services, obedience to the Hegumen or Superior, and observance of community du-ties and holy lifestyles...

...So as the papacy of Benedict XVI begins, watch this space for the results of holy leadership...

...The rhythm of life was similar at all three...

...One announced secular time for the benefit of the pilgrims...

...Tradition says this was how Noah called the animals into the ark...

...Indeed time itself is completely different...

...For the College of Cardinals has now twice in succession elected a leader whose outward conservative views and inner spirituality have little or nothing to do with contemporary pressures, fashions, or timetables...

...It is a holy reminder that at each strike we are half an hour nearer to our deaths," said Brother Matthew...

...On the ferry from Ouranopolis to Athos the most important passengers (with their own VIP prayer lounge) were about 30 monks clad in their black robes and skouphoi (fez-like hats...

...Getting to Athos is difficult...

...The Holy Mountain's passports, ornate and heavily stamped, are relatively easy to obtain if you are an Orthodox Christian...

...HIGH SPIRITS J O N A T H A N A I T K E N Mount Athos Time r HE EXTRAORDINARY NUMBER of prayerful visitors who poured into Rome for the funeral of John Paul II and the election of his successor Benedict XVI were a reminder that certain ancient capitals of the religious world are centers of pilgrim-age which have retained a special aura of holiness across the millennia...

...My new friend on Athos, Father Colombon, spoke disparagingly of the world's fashions and fixations with instant results...

...i Jonathan Aitken, The American Spectator's High Spirits columnist, is the author ofseven books, including Nixon: A Life...

...He invited me and my three companions to call on him in his Skete (a dependency of a main monastery) during the course of our pilgrimage across the republic...

...It is also a reminder for us to prepare ourselves to meet our God" In a way, this statue symbolized something of the character of holiness...

...Incense is burned on a far more liberal scale than anything to be seen in St...

...His Holiness the Pope, the College of Cardinals, and the monks of Mount Athos might all agree on the primacy of such holy values as the bedrock of faith...

...True holiness is built on eternal verities, obedience to God's commandments, and a life of prayer...

...Peter's and the repetitions of the Kyrie Eleisons (done in blocks of 39...

...Yet even in a foreign language the overall effect of these services (quite routinely four to five hours in length and often running all night for eight to nine hours) is to transport the pilgrim into another world...

...But gradually I came to under-stand that these monks were professionals at prayer who had found their own paths to grace in an atmosphere of prayer-soaked walls and centuries-old rituals...

...Outside the main church at Vatopedi stood a statue equipped with a mechanical hammer that struck a bell every 30 minutes...

...Under these chronological arrangements, the day in the monastery begins at 4 am...

...It is certainly an effective way of waking up somnolent humans since no one could possibly sleep through a Semantron's summons...

...I fell into conversation with one of them, Father Colombon, a Frenchman whose colorful past included spells as an actor in Paris and a restaurateur in London...

...The other clock, for the monks, recorded Byzantine time, which registers dawn as noon and nightfall as midnight...

...No tourists or casual visitors are admitted—only bona fide pilgrims...

...Our Western lifestyle pressurizes us to fill our schedules, meet our deadlines, and hit our targets in accordance with manmade timetables...

...A Westerner maybe reluctant to embrace some of these Orthodox rituals such as the veneration of relics...

...True holiness is built on eternal verities, obedience to God's commandments, and a life of prayer...

...I myself found it hard to accept that kissing a belt said to have been worn by the Virgin Mary would cure women with infertility problems for whomprayers were offered...

...However, Brother Matthew, the young American monk who explained all this to me at Vatopedi monastery, was so persuasive as he cited specific cases of these cures that I came away with skepticism diminished—at least of the power of prayer for such healings...

...But for what purpose...

...Jerusalem is the prime example of a holy city passionately venerated by three of the world's great religions...

...While for Orthodox Christians the Holy and Monastic Republic of Mount Athos, a self-governing sac-red mountain peak of prayer and worship in Greece, is right up there alongside the Vatican and Jerusalem in the holiness stakes...

...As creatures of time, we mortal humans have great difficulty in getting our heads round the concept of eternity...

...The main servJ O N A T H A N A I T K E N ices (which occupied at least seven hours of the day) were Vespers combined with Compline in the evening and Matins combined with Lauds in the early morning...

...with an ear-blasting wake-up call from the Semantron...

...ONCE YOU GET INSIDE an Orthodox monastery, time takes on a different dimension from the high priority it is given in the Western world...

...And faith, as Jesus reminded us and John Paul II showed us, can move mountains...

...At all the establishments we visited on Mount Athos, two clocks were on the walls...

...In between the monks prayed, studied, and carried out their practical duties, which put a considerable emphasis on welcoming and ministering to the visiting pilgrims...

...Although I was eager to continue my dialogue with Father Colombon, our carefully planned schedule involved overnight stays at the large monasteries of Koutloumousiu, Vatopedi, and Grigoriou...

...difficult if you are any other sort of believer...

...ask holy men in holy capitals...