Back from the Holy Mount Athos, Greece

Finally back from Mount Athos and have some time to settle down and write.

The whole trip was one big comedy, but with the necessary life lesson in it. To be honest, it was my first real experience in Christianity, and in particular Orthodox Christianity. Before continuing let me sketch the scene for you first.

Mount Athos is considered the Holy Mountain of the Orthodox Christians for people to retreat as monks and/or hermits and dedicate their life to God. It is open for pilgrims to spend some days there to strengthen their faith. Interestingly, no women are allowed on the island, and it can only be accessed by boat through 2 ports only. I think you have to be even Orthodox Christian to access Mount Athos, luckily through a friend of Photis we were able to enter without any problem and stay longer than the average 3 days.

We basically embarked the journey with the 5 of us, David, Photis, Yoryos, Marcus and yours truly. To enter Mount Athos you need a special permit. When we received our permits, the religion of the person is stated on the paper; for me it was "nothing", for David "Catholic", assuming he was Italian, and for Marcus it said "Protestant". Photis and Marcus went last year, and Marcus got into some trouble because he was Protestant. So, we went back to immediately change our religions haha. Unfortunately for Marcus, due to previous records we were not able to change his permit, but for David and me, we now have an official paper from Mount Athos stating that we are Orthodox Christian :)

In truth, nobody would check you, unless there is a huge doubt. 

We basically had a scheduled planned out, which was prearranged. But due to Marcus arriving already sick and then David, we eventually stayed in the first monastery 4 nights instead of 1. The first monastery was well off, but had so many rules, and was filled with angry monks and if it wasn't for Photis' friend we would have probably been kicked out after the first night. You have to see it as going on school camp with the Fathers being the teachers. 
It was interesting to see, how much rules one has, not wearing socks into the monastery is a sin, not fasting is a sin, breaking rules is a sin, having sex with an unmarried woman is a sin, masturbating is a sin and so on. Hahaha, it was at a point ridiculous. Of course this is from our perspective, these are people who are still following ancient rules and live by this. So, when the 5 stooges arrived, they were tested by God and so were we :P.

Also we were stealing wine from the refrigerator, drinking wine late at night, smuggled beer inside the rooms, eating diary during fasting and so on. Like a school camp. 

One night we were planning to do confession, and it was very interesting to see, Yoryos was fully interrogated in how he had sex with his wife. If they had oral sex, anal sex, did he masturbate, and so on. Unbelievable, and literally they were fishing for this stuff, to seek your sins. Luckily, I was last and when David came out of the confession room he said: "Keep it short, the guy talks a lot" hahaha. So, I diverted all the questions and pretended to be the perfect Christian, which the Father was stroking awkwardly my face and saying "Good boy Anthony, Good boy"... seriously weird. Haha. I felt sexually harassed haha.

Ow yes, before I forget, the name Anthony, or Antoon, Antoinne, derived from Saint Anthony the Great, was given to me by David. You could say my Christian Spiritual that arrived out of need. We were visiting several places and of course looking like not your typical Orthodox Christian, basically looking Asian, I was asked many times how I became Orthodox Christian, and when I was baptized. Well coming up with that story and an imaginary Russian family friends was the easy part, then one day one Father asked me what my Christian name was...well eeh..well and David came to the rescue, his name is Antoon... And so Antoon was born. And I embarked my journey through Mount Athos as Antoon. Funny thing was that the whole group had to adjust to calling me Antoon instead of KJ, and it took sometimes a long time before I reacted.."Ow yes, that is me".

Despite the awkward experiences, I must say I had some interesting experiences there as well. The first day I arrived to attend the Divine Liturgy in church, I was in a normal state and not understanding what the monks were doing and saying. When the monks started to chant, for no reason, my heart start to pour out and I started to cry, non-stop for an hour. In this moment I understood the Heart prayer, Lord have mercy. As I finished crying, all the people that were standing around me left, and the corner I was standing was empty, except for one Russian guy, that came to check on me. 

From this monastery we went looking for a hermit who apparently has the gift of the Holy Spirit (whatever that means) to receive blessing and to get Marcus and me baptized. When we found the hermit, who was residing in a brotherhood, we were not allowed to see him. Of course these people they became hermits for a reason, to be away even from the consensus of the monasteries, and it is only natural that they don't want to see anyone, especially the 5 stooges :P. Also, this hermit has stopped seeing people for the past 2 years. 
We tried to press the brother monks to see him, but eventually they were very distant and rather had us go. Instead, we made a small prayer in their chapel and give thanks to the hermit (his presence was definitely there). From their I entered in the Heart and asked the hermit to give us a baptism, and from the Heart, the hermit answered "Lord Jesus Christ is already in your heart, why do you need to be baptized?". I took this as my baptism.  David told us about the famous Saint Kabir, who was born in the low cast, was once waiting for the Guru to come down the stairs to take a bath in the holy Ganges. Kabir laid there on the steps and waited for the Guru to step on him, and when it happened the Guru yelled God. Kabir took this as his initiation, and from that his journey began and became the famous Saint Kabir.
We left a bit disappointed, but David reiterated that the Guru can come in different forms, not necessarily to be in physical form, as his presence was clear. In the end the Heart is but one.

When everyone recovered, we continued our journey to stay at a brotherhood of 3 people. Along the way we visited 2 monasteries. The first one, we bumped into this friendly old monk, who started to make comparison with Buddhism and Hinduism. The monastery itself, had a very uplifting feel, and as the old monk said, it was a more free monastery than others. One of the interesting things the old monk said, was that we did not inherit guilt from Adam as many believe to be, but we inherited the blindness not to see God. Which was a beautiful way of looking at things. 

So we continued and bumped into this Greek guy.. that immediately asked me if I was from Hong Kong, and I asked him how he knew... he said when he was on holidays he would play with the kids of Hong Kong families... and he loves the chinky eyes.. dirty old pervert. Hahaha. We moved on and arrived in a Romanian monastery, again the feeling was different, we met this young monk, very friendly guy and he was telling about the miracle icons they have. One of them is about the Virgin Mary holding Jesus, and that the painter one day could not finish the painting, he suddenly forgot how to paint the faces, and he became very upset, believing he had lost his skills. In the evening, miraculously the painting was finished, and the faces are portrayed very differently, more human like, rather than iconic. It is also said that it is the closest to the real face of Virgin Mary. Another is about the Painting of Saint John with the angry face, when the Turks tried to invade Mount Athos and take over the Icons and Relics, the face turned angry and when they tried to shoot the painting, the bullets fell on the ground. And so each, monastery or brotherhood holds icons, and or relics.

The father, liked us so much that he gave us a Divine Liturgy in English and in mine there was written "To my first friend from Hong Kong/Holland, KJ (Antoon)".

From there we moved on to the brotherhood and stayed there overnight, it was absolutely a beautiful place, hanging over a cliff near the sea.  We did the mass with the Fathers and Marcus got kicked out, because he was Protestant. After that we decided to tell to everyone that he was Orthodox as well, just like me :P. 

The next day we had to travel by foot, and according to many people it was only a 3-3.5 hours walk...great, me with 12 kg on my back and Marcus with 20 kg on his back we were walking 7.5 hours to reach our destination... meeting the most interesting bunch of them all.. a Russian Father that in the end got banned from Russia, and is now residing in Mount Athos almost like a hermit, but with a live blog, haha. When we asked him for showers.. it was a bit of an awkward question, because they did not shower.."Everything is blessed by Virgin Mary no need for showers"...yeah great.. luckily he suggested us to take a dip in the sea for the shower.

The next day we were so afraid to climb up the mountain again to visit the last brotherhood, luckily the boat would go to the other side of the cliff, that saved a lot of time and only a steep 1 hour climb up the mountain. Luckily we got a donkey to carry our bags. It was a jolly brotherhood with their own perks and rules, such as the bell of hell, run by Dumbledore. When we were taking an afternoon nap, they rang the bell of hell, TING TING TING TING, to ask us how we would like our coffee. At 4am the bell of hell rang again, TING TING TING TING, to wake us up, which left me in shock for 45 minutes.

After the whole journey we decided to leave the next day, we basically all felt we finished our journey, and it was time to leave Mount Athos. When buying tickets at Dafni back to Ouranapolis, these 2 Greeks asked me if I was Orthodox. Yes I am. Where are you from? I am from Holland. Where were you born? I was born in Holland. Where are your parents from? Hong Kong, China. And the guys made a cross and one wanted to touch my feet haha. I've been this crazy miracle in Mount Athos, the Chinese Orthodox convert.
Oooh how good it was when we arrived in Ouranapolis, sweet sweet civilization. God have mercy on us!

Looking back, the journey was beautiful, tiring and fruitful. As for my view on Christianity, it did not change that much, it confirmed what I already knew. As a designer we try to achieve simplicity, we discard the unnecessary, and what is left is most important, the essence. For Christianity all that remains then is God is Love. Of course like many people in design, people add things, what they believe is important :P, so it is with religion, people like marketing, or bosses, chair-mans and so, we all have our own view and from that we lose sight of what is important. And hold on stronger to that view than the essence. It is the same for all beliefs, whether religion, or your own view it doesn't matter.

I must say, I have much more respect now for the hermits and the monks that choose this life, it is a 24 hours job with the same baggage in office life, politics, rules, and much more. A life only suitable for a few. Despite the many dogmas and rules, they deserve as much love and compassion as anyone.

After India, I had enough of the dogma in  Buddhism. And now after this long week, I've had enough of the dogma within Christianity. No disrespect to any religion, it is just that my experience so far is that they all point to the same thing, the Heart, most importantly as His Holiness the Dalai Lama says is to develop a loving and caring heart. As John the Baptist said: God is Love. 

Kabir sums it up beautifully:

Where do you search me?
I am with you
Not in pilgrimage, nor in icons
Neither in solitudes
Not in temples, nor in mosques
Neither in Kaba nor in Kailash
I am with you O man
I am with you
Not in prayers, nor in meditation
Neither in fasting
Not in yogic exercises
Neither in renunciation
Neither in the vital force nor in the body 
Not even in the ethereal space 
Neither in the womb of Nature 
Not in the breath of the breath
Seek earnestly and discover
In but a moment of search
Says Kabir, Listen with care
Where your faith is, I am there.