Pilgrimages

VISITING THE HOLY MOUNTAIN
Before the Holy Virgin
Geronda Nikola, a sexton of the congregational church Dostojno Jest in Karyes, guided us through the paths of this unique place. We visited Xiropotamos, Panteleimonas, Vatopedi, Pantocrator, Iviron... In the end, we were all blessed by old Nikodim, the humble guardian of the most pious Serbian corner of the Hermitage of St. Sava

Text and photo: Mišo Vujović

The new boat ”Odigitrija” or The Road Leader, named after one of the most beautiful Holy Mountain icons in the world, cut off the open blue ea. Bathed in the morning sun and full of pilgrims it rushed along the shore covered with short vegetation.
Already at the exit from Ouranopolis, the murmur of passengers, mixed with Russian, Greek, Serbian, Romanian, Moldovan, English and who knows what languages, quietly went silent. Excitement was felt mixed with curiosity among most of the pilgrims who were meeting this unique and unusual state for the first time.
Interest in visiting the Holy Mountain is growing every year, which has also increased the care for security.
Agio Oros in Greece, or the Holy Mountain, was not by accident called the Empire of the Holy Virgin and the prayer capital of Orthodox Christianity. A state without hospitals, maternity wards, factories, barracks, affairs... Here, death means birth and with joy and praise to Christ its inhabitants are seen off to their eternal rest dressed in black chasubles with small big schemes.
Mount Athos is a unique monastic state in the world in which lifestyle has not changed for centuries. It is the empire of the monastic enterprise embodied through the sumptuous monasteries, sketes, hermitage cells, where prayers exist and rule as the main occupation in the Holy Mountain of Athos.

DEEP SERBIAN TRACES

The power of the Serbian medieval state, its rulers and nobles is reflected in endowments, charters, relics, artifacts. The sanctuaries of the Holy Mountain of Athos with their monumentality even today testify about the power of Orthodoxy, but also of the Serbian people, whose traces, besides Hilandar, we find in the sumptuous Vatopedi, where St. Sava and St. Simeon were crowned through the patronage. Prince Lazar donated the belt of the Most Holy Theotokos and part of the honorable cross to this powerful monastery. The beautiful Osiou Gregoriou was built by a Serb, St. Grigorije the Deaf, the monastery of St. Paul is an endowment of the Branković family, as well as the Esphigmenou, which was restored by Đurađ Branković. In Xiropotamos is the second patron restorer St. Sava. Simonopetra was supported and annexed by Despot Jovan Uglјeša Mrnjavčević, later also Đurađ Branković. St. Panteleimonas at the time of the fall of Russia, was maintained by Serbs... The hermitage of St. Sava in Karyes today shines with its old glow...
We stood in awe before the monumentality of St. Panteleimonas. The former Rusik, where St. Sava took his monastic vows, was put away a few kilometers into the hill. After the construction of St. Panteleimonas, the old Rusik was deserted. Today, after the reconstruction of its ancient clothes, with the arrival of old monks, it came back to life again. In the past ten years, St. Panteleimonas was fully rebuilt.
Geronda Nikola, a sexton of the congregational church Dostojno Jest in Karyes, guided us through the paths of this unique place. We visited Xiropotamos, Panteleimonas, Vatopedi, Pantocrator, Iviron...
In the end, we were all blessed by old Nikodim, the humble guardian of the most pious Serbian corner of the Hermitage of St. Sava.

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Athos
Athos is a mountain and a peninsula in northern Greece known as the Holy Mountain. Aγιο Oρος in Greek, or Aγιον Oρος in classical Greek means Holy Mountain. There is the seat of about twenty Orthodox monasteries and they comprise an autonomous state under Greek sovereignty. Only monks can live on Mount Athos, and currently there are about two thousands of them. The peninsula, the eastern arm of a larger peninsula of Khalkidhiki, is sixty kilometers long, and seven to twelve kilometers wide. It stretches over an area of 390 square kilometers. Mount Athos has steep and densely forested slopes, and its highest peak is 2,033 meters high.