another. Each receives from the monastery fuel, wine, vegetables, cheese, and about £2 or £3 a year. The rest he must earn for himself. They only meet for the Divine Office and on great feasts for dinner. Otherwise they do what they like. But their lives are quite simple, poor, and edifying.
Besides the monasteries there are a few hermits who live entirely alone, chiefly in Macedonia.[1] Monasteries are spread all over the Orthodox world. The Meteora lauras in Thessaly, perched on the top of crags to which one is hauled up in a basket, are famous; Sveti Naum, on Lake Ochrida, has been much discussed lately as a forepost of Hellenism in Macedonia,[2] Jerusalem has ten Orthodox monasteries, Cyprus fourteen, Russia four hundred,[3] &c. We have already spoken of Mount Sinai (p. 310). But the most famous of all, and one of the great centres of the Orthodox Church, is the monastic republic on the Holy Mountain, Athos. Mount Athos is at the end of the northernmost of the three peninsulas that jut out from Chalcis. The whole peninsula is a colony of monasteries; even the Turks call it Ayon Oros (τὸ ἅγιον ὄρος). In the 10th century a certain St. Athanasius built a great laura here;[4] gradually others were founded round it, and now there are twenty lauras, which have many more kellia and sketai under them. All these lauras are stauropegia—no bishop but the Œcumenical Patriarch has any jurisdiction on the Holy Mountain—and all but one are "Imperial lauras." When the Turk came he allowed autonomy and special privileges to the monks' republic, and in this case he has honourably kept his word. The result is that the only Rayahs who ever speak well of the Sultan are the Athos monks.[5] The most important of these
- ↑ For monastic life in the Orthodox Church see Silbernagl, pp. 43–60, and the books on Mount Athos quoted, p. xxv.
- ↑ Cf. Gelzer: Vom hlgen Berge, u.s.w., pp. 189–201.
- ↑ The three greatest lauras in Russia are the Holy Trinity at Moscow, St. Alexander at Petersburg, and the Holy Wisdom at Kiev. Mr. Palmer spent some time at the Moscow laura (Visit, &c., pp. 183–220).
- ↑ There are wonderful legends about Athos, tracing the foundations back to St. Constantine, the "equal of the Apostles," and telling of endless apparitions and miracles (Gelzer, o.c. pp. 10–14). See also the real history (pp. 14–28).
- ↑ All Mohammedans have a great respect for any sort of ascetic, holy man or monk. They, too, know what fakirs are.
