Mount Athos is the ark of Orthodoxy. It includes twenty Holy monasteries and other monastic institutions such as hermitages, cells and seats.
It is today the largest and most important monastic state of the Orthodox East with a long tradition. Crib and cradle of Orthodoxy. Here beats the heart of Orthodoxy for the entire Ecumenical.
In the Athonian State, a wonderful cultural treasure has been cultivated and preserved for centuries, which includes: church building, painting (portable icons, murals, mosaics), illustrated manuscripts, embroidery, small crafts, sculpture, woodcarving. This treasure does not refer to a museum of the past, but to a living present of Orthodox monasticism, which is a luminous testimony of the renovation of man and the world in Christ. Athos, Mount Athos, the Orchard of Panagia – the epitome of aesthetics and culture. With monasteries lost in the depths of the centuries.
Mount Athos, an entire peninsula dedicated to praying to God, is a place every Christian should visit once in their lifetime.
“What one discovers on Mount Athos and cannot easily forget is the mystical character of the shared meal. After the vigil we went to the bank. Everyone had in front of them a plate of beans, a piece of bread, cheese and a glass of wine. The abbot rang a bell, the reading of a holy text began and we all ate in silence.
Once again, as is generally the case with the strong impressions one receives on Mount Athos, I must confess that I find it difficult to express them, because this time too so much seems to me to be worth recording. The table resembled the Eucharistic gatherings of the first Christians, which were associated with the expectation of the Last Days, the Second Coming of Christ”.
