Journey to the Holy Mountain: What an unbeliever discovered at the monasteries of Mount Athos – Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Chris Fotinopoulos
So how does an unbeliever like me end up in a place that, according to my spiritual cohabitants for seven nights, lies closest to God? Perhaps because there must be a place for middle-aged Australian men of Greek heritage to go for peace and quiet.
In an age of wellness, the retreat industry is, according to Forbes, nudging the trillion-dollar mark. Wellness tourism may be booming, but I had something less “new age” in mind. I was seeking something closer in spirit to the old hippie trail — the one that once drew me and kaftan-clad Australians to ashrams, Buddhist temples and northern Indian peaks in our twenties. But that journey was well past me now.
Instead, I turned to the iconography of my childhood. To the place where I was baptised. Baptism, in the Christian faith, signifies rebirth, and aren’t we all seeking some form of spiritual renewal in late middle age? It was in the Greek Orthodox Church that, as a boy, I witnessed the baptisms of cousins and the weddings of lifelong friends and relatives. It was where I was baptised and married. And, in later life, it has become the place where funeral services are held with increasing frequency for those who have been my spiritual constants.
I was brought to the church from birth, and I will return in death, so why can’t it serve as my well-being retreat — my self-help clinic — for the time being?
I had no hesitation entering a place that I often described as the spiritual French Foreign Legion for misfits and the disaffected. Besides, it would have been hypocritical to turn my nose up at a promised land reserved for such individuals when I was a misfit myself.
I read somewhere that the path to wellness requires withdrawal — a stepping back. And what better form of withdrawal than one that carries you all the way back to the sixth century?
With the Holy Bible (mandatory reading for non-believers) in my backpack, my diamonētérion (entry permit) in hand, and my sneering scepticism parked at the Tullamarine departure gate, I boarded the Agia Anna in Ouranoupolis for my sea journey to the all-male, self-governing monastic republic of Agios Oros, the “Holy Mountain”.
^{A ferry boat, the Agia Anna, near the pier at Ouranoupolis harbor in Athos, Halkidiki, in northern Greece. (Kisa_Markiza / iStock Editorial / Getty Images)}
From the deck, the monasteries first appear along the western coast of Halkidiki’s “third leg”, as the Greeks refer this geographical feature, their spectacular austerity and grandeur rising from the rock. But by the time we reached the bustling Athonite harbour of Daphne, where groups of gruff Eastern European and Greek men, many with alcohol on their breath, jostled for bus and ferry tickets, it felt more like a male purgatory than a spiritual oasis. Yet this chaos dissolved as I stepped into the serene courtyard of the Holy Monastery of Agiou Gregoriou (Saint Gregory) where a softly spoken young monk in a black outer cassock (eksorasson) greeted us with rose-flavoured loukoumi (Turkish delight) and a shot of tsípouro (un-aged brandy).
Any place without a female presence feels unsettling, at least to men accustomed to their company. Although I immediately sensed the absence of women, the feminine has a way of seeping into even the most austere masculine worlds. Some pilgrims doted on the monastery cats, the only female animals permitted within the monastic precinct, as they roamed the cobbled stone paths; others ignored them completely. One man stooped to lift a black kitten as though it were a baby, while another bent to pat a tabby that brushed against his ankle. A pilgrim paused to photograph a litter basking in the afternoon sun, then continued down the path where a priest, wearing a crimson kalpáki (clerical cap), greeted him warmly. Down by the wharf, another man spoke to someone I presumed to be his wife on the phone, slowly turning in a half-circle so she could see both him and the exclusive male enclave known, as my roommate Theodoro explained, as the Virgin Mary’s Garden — To Peribóli tēs Panagías.
Near the fountain dedicated to Agiou Georgiou, a cat reclined in the cool stone trough as the sinking sun turned the sea to marigold, watching men speak to their wives or girlfriends on their phones before heading to their dorms.
^{Saint Gregory monastery on Mount Athos, Greece. The Monastic State of Mount Athos is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. (Photo by Nicolas Economou / NurPhoto via Getty Images)}
Detachment is necessary to reconnect, yet with faith it is never complete. A clean break from my boyhood church feels impossible, shaped as it is by the childhood rituals my mother and, especially, my papoúli (grandfather) introduced me to during our visits to Sunday service. Though I withdrew from the church long ago, Orthodox ritual remains my enduring cultural touchstone.
As I sat in silence in the main church of Agiou Georgiou dedicated to Saint Nicholas of Myra, I was immediately drawn back to the faded world of my childhood: the smoking thumiató (censor), its chain softly jingling as it stirred the sweet, heavy scent of incense; the gold-plated kantélia (oil lamps) shimmering like faint beacons in the pre-dawn darkness; the flickering candles anchored in fine sand within the narthēkas (candle stand); the embroidered silk kalúmmata (coverings) resting over the trápeza (sacred bench) and the sacred icons of the eikonostási (shrine) — all glowing beneath the great chandelier, trembling under the gaze of Christ Pantokrátoras (“Ruler of All”), to the haunting cadence of the liturgy and the solemn déēsis (supplication).
^{Candles burn within the within the narthēkas, or candle stand, at the Agiou Gregoriou monastery. (Photo supplied by Chris Fotinopoulos)}
As the early morning liturgy deepens and pale light filters through the plain church windows, I entertain the idea that the departed do not go “to a better place”, as you often hear people say these days when offering condolences. Perhaps they are alive in Christ, as the Orthodox faith maintains, their presence enduring in eternal prayer. The flickering candle casts its gentle glow, reminding us of God’s love, a love no different from that of a parent for their child.
It is said that one must first reach the depths before rising again. During the first days of my stay, I encountered men who had surely reached theirs, yet something of God’s love seemed to hold them back from plunging into utter despair. I saw those broken by war, grieving lost friends, wrestling inner demons and struggling against addiction. I shared a dorm with a grandfather seeking help for his ailing granddaughter, and I was moved to tears by the sight of a proud man cradling his severely disabled son as the boat carrying weary pilgrims pulled into an Athonite harbour. At one point, the child craned his head like a little bird toward his father, who kissed him softly on the forehead, a gentle reminder of the sacred power of parental love. I ask myself how a benevolent God can permit such suffering. Perhaps God gives only as much as we can bear, no more and no less.
^{Painted Narthex at Vatopedi monastery on Mount Athos, Greece. (Photo by Chris Hellier / Corbis via Getty Images)}
A few days later, at the Vatopedi monastery, I watch the monks flit like black-clad phantoms throughout the church during the marathon Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross service, which begins after 5:30pm and stretches past 2am, when worshippers receive a sprig of holy basil, hagioloudoúdo. I remain until the end to receive the blessed basil, slipping it between the pages of the Holy Bible for the journey home, to present to my wife, Stavroula. She had already marked her Name Day thirteen days earlier, following the Gregorian calendar as Australian Orthodox Christians do, while the monastic community remains faithful to the Julian calendar, allowing this commemoration to be observed twice. The basil, pressed between the pages, bridges my world at home with the monastic realm to which I am momentarily transported, a privilege granted those who dwell between twin cultural domains.
The following night, the elderly black-clad cleric leading the homilía (homily) at Xenophontos monastery draws on the language of war to describe the soul’s battle with Satan. His words recall for me the image of a boy, no older than four, tapping at his phone, absorbed in a combat game, the rapid rat-tat-tat echoing the inner struggles of so many pilgrims as the boat pulls into the Holy Monastery of Panteleimonos — the Russian monastery often associated with Putin.
The homily continues. “Armed with God’s love, and with our willingness to repent, Satan will be defeated”, the monk declares before inviting questions from the floor.
“But does Satan exist?” a pilgrim asks.
“Ask the exomologētés (confessors) who attend the daily cinema of evil”, he replies, “and they will tell you.”
^{A monk in his cell at the Holy Monastery of Agiou Gregoriou. (Photo supplied by Chris Fotinopoulos)}
In the three monasteries where I stayed, I began to notice numerous bearded men dressed in simple civilian clothes, neither monks nor pilgrims, moving quietly through the courtyards and cloisters, tending to small, practical tasks. One or two would drift up to the balcony set aside for smokers, sharing a cigarette and a few words before returning to their duties.
I asked one of them if he had been there long. He told me he planned to stay until Christmas this time. Another long-term resident spent his days cutting a narrow calico ribbon into inch-long strips, three at a time, and slipping each into a small envelope to be distributed to pilgrims. I later learned these were tokens of the Virgin Mary’s belt, which younger pilgrims would take home to their wives in hope of starting a family.
When I asked him in Greek what he was doing, he did not speak, but continued with the quiet, repetitive task, his focus unbroken. I found myself growing curious about these long-term figures who seemed to exist on the periphery of monastic life. They were men you might encounter in an Australian city shelter. Men burdened by deep grief, others wrestling with inner demons, addiction or mental illness. Yet here, they had found a kind of refuge. A fragile peace.
Watching the monks go about their routines, I realised that faith is about diligent work and discipline as much as it is about dogma. One can say that it is their dogged attempt to outpace the devil.
^{A monk striking the semantron at the Holy Monastery of Agios Nikolaos at sunset on 1 January 2025 in Porto Lagos, Greece. (Photo by Athanasios Gioumpasis / Getty Images)}
The sound of the semantron, a wooden plank struck with a mallet that replaced church bells after they were banned under Ottoman rule, serves as a warning against idleness, reminding all within the monastery walls of the moral danger of living an undisciplined life. In this way, it seems, one combats evil, echoing Paul’s instructions in 1 Thessalonians 4:11: “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands.”
With their own hands, the monks cultivate the crops that produce the wine and the tsípouro that accompanies the food served each morning and evening to the monastic community. Every monk has a function: the Ampelikòs tends the vineyards, the Arsanãris manages the docks, the Dochiarēs oversees food supplies, the Peribolãs tends the gardens, the Kaïktzēs manages the boats, and the Prosphoriárēs bakes the bread, just to name a few.
Through these tasks, the rhythm of monastic life transforms work into a spiritual practice, a tangible enactment of discipline, devotion and service to both God and community.
One afternoon, the guest house manager (archontárēs) noticed me hovering in the halls of the archontaríki (guest’s quarters) with little to do other than scribble in my notebook, as I had been doing for the past couple of days. He ordered me upstairs to the kitchen quarters, where I was greeted by a black-clad gérontas (an affectionate term for the elderly), Father Lazaros, seated at the workbench with a mountain of potatoes — eighty kilos in total — ready for peeling.
Thankfully for Father Lazaros, the house manager had rounded up four additional pilgrims to assist. Together, we were handed knives and peelers and set to work, chatting as we peeled, sliced, and diced potatoes for the evening meal.
^{Food is being laid out by monks at the Simonopetra monastery on Mount Athos, Greece. (Photo by Nicolas Economou / NurPhoto via Getty Images)}
The 84-year Father Lazaros, who I discovered to my surprise was still married and father to seven grown up children, grinned mischievously. “Who among you has a horrible mother-in-law?”
“I do”, I said. Then corrected myself, “I did … she’s deceased.”
Father Lazarus fished a peeled potato out of a blue plastic tub of water and placed it at the centre of a timber cutting board. “Imagine this is your mother-in-law’s heart”, he said with a laugh. “Take the knife and run it down the centre, dividing it into two even pieces. Now, cut it at three horizontal points.”
I followed his instructions, to the cheerful encouragement of the kitchen recruits, reducing her imaginary heart to evenly diced cubes — doomed, apparently, to be consumed by the black-clad clergy that evening.
I felt a quiet satisfaction that night, as men sat side by side on wooden benches, scooping the meal we had prepared from tin plates into their mouths to the sounds of prayer and clatter. Tonight’s feast was potato lasagne with rich soy-based filling, a crisp lettuce salad, olives, freshly baked bread, a generous slice of semolina cake, and apples that resembled Granny Smiths, all washed down with wine served in tin cups.
^{Peeling and dicing potatoes at the Agiou Gregoriou monastery. (Photo supplied by Chris Fotinopoulos)}
Among the 120 monks now living at the Vatopedi monastery — up from just forty in 1993 — thirteen are Australian.
I meet the first of the Australian monks in the Vatopedi courtyard. He is Father Efstathios from Sydney, who introduces me to Father Nikandros. When I ask if he too is Australian, he smiles and corrects me: “I was once an Australian.” We talk for a while, and I discover he attended Northcote Boys’ High, the Melbourne school where I once taught, and that he entered monastic life at 21, around the same time I began my own teaching career.
We speak about monastic life, its challenges and consolations, until I turn to leave. “How are the Hawks travelling?” he calls after me.
“Once an Australian, always a Hawk”, I reply, and we both laugh.
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The next Australian I meet is Father Panaretos, who manages the reception. He’s chatty and efficient, effortlessly juggling pilgrims and paperwork. Replace the black robe with a sharp suit, a clean shave, and a neat haircut, and he could pass for a service clerk at a boutique hotel, or perhaps a real estate agent in inner Melbourne, sans spiritual enlightenment.
The following day, Father Theonas, the longest-serving Australian monk, greets me with a welcoming smile. He is gaunt and sallow faced. I introduce myself as a spiritually curious sceptic, though I suspect he senses it immediately.
“Where do you live?” he asks.
“Melbourne”, I reply. “You?”
“Here”, he says.
“No, where did you live in Australia?” I clarify.
“Brisbane.”
“So when did you leave Brisbane for this place?”
“1982.”
“So you were there during Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s reign?”
A brief pause. “Yes, he was Premier at the time.”
I realise that it was around this time I decided to visit India in search of God-knows-what, though I clearly lacked the discipline that Father Theonas had. Around then, one of my distant cousins had also chosen the monastic life. No one from his immediate family has seen him or heard from him since — not even after the monastery where it was believed he lived was approached to pass on the news that his mother and father, the sweetest and most loving people I had known, had died within days of each other. I would have liked to raise this with Father Theonas, but he was clearly preoccupied with preparations for the Veneration of the Holy Cross Service.
^{A small procession at the Vatopedi monastery on Mount Athos, Greece. (Photo by Gianni Giansanti / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)}
I was about to mention that the Brisbane rock band The Saints were at their peak when he left, but that would have muddled things. We walk and talk about the Australians in Vatopedi instead.
“Why this place?” I ask.
He looks puzzled.
“What has drawn so many Australians here?” I clarify.
“God’s will”, he says, though I suspect he’s had a hand in the recruitment process.
A little further into our conversation, Father Theonas approaches a tall, black-bearded monk. “Show him the relics”, he instructs.
“We spoke on the phone earlier this year”, I say. “I was on my way home from work when I received your call.”
“Yes, I remember”, Father Parthenios replies.
“I remember telling my wife that I could swear the monk I just spoke to was Australian”, I add.
“So, where in Melbourne do you live?” he asks.
“Brunswick.”
He smiles an expression that seems to acknowledge the stories I have from Brunswick.
Before we can continue, an American contingent of pilgrims arrives for the church tour. Despite a sore throat, Father Parthenios delivers his talk in a Greek-Australian accent for which I have deep affection, a sound that reminds me our past can never be completely erased.
He explains the historical origins of the sixth-century church, the meaning behind the well-preserved icons that adorn the walls, and the origins of the holy relics (Leípsana) which include the skeletal remains of saints and a fragment of the Virgin Mary’s camel-hair belt, the Hagía Zóēn. He adds that the monastery receives countless emails from pilgrims whose wives have conceived after being anointed with the holy oil distributed in tiny plastic receptacles resembling eye-drop bottles.
My thoughts turn to the Cypriot monk I’d spoken with at reception earlier that day, who had complimented me on my frames.
“I like your frames”, he said.
“My what?”
“Your glass frames.”
“Oh. Thank you”, I say, slightly surprised.
We spoke for a while about the large Cypriot community in Melbourne, and at one point he asked how many children I had. A question I was often asked at the monastery.
“I have no children”, I said.
He smiled. “Oh, that doesn’t matter.” After a brief pause, he added, “We don’t have children either”, before breaking into a joyous cackle.
^{Rugged path leading to Simonopetra monastery on Mount Athos, Greece. (George Pachantouris / Moment / Getty Images)}
Earlier that day I met the most recent recruit, Kyriakos, who had arrived from Sydney by means of Nepal nine months earlier. A gentle, sweet-faced boy with a wispy beard, he struck me with his calm presence. I mentioned that I had visited Nepal many years ago, in the early 1980s, and found the city of Kathmandu and its people warm and welcoming, a peaceful place, though I imagine it has changed significantly since. Kyriakos said he was not in a position to compare, but that he sensed its spiritual energy. We talked about monastic life, and he explained that a monk must serve at least twenty years and demonstrate “spiritual maturity” before he can be considered for the role of confessor — exomologētés.
Many of the men I met were here to confess. As a senior monk explained in the homily, no matter how unspeakable the act, it is extinguished the moment it is spoken to those who commune directly with God. I wonder what degree of spiritual maturity one must attain to serve as confessor. Who decides? And how can they be certain?
My dorm companions ask whether I will make a confession. I tell them I am not ready for such a profound act, choosing instead to lose myself in thought on my first demanding walk to the neighbouring Holy Monastery of Simonopetra.
^{Entrance to the chapel of the Holy Monastery of Simonopetra. (Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)}
Over the following days, during my solitary walks along the steep, narrow goat tracks, I am often overtaken by fleet-footed monks, their pace and purpose hinting at a freedom from the burdens that weigh the rest of us down.
The monk, affectionately referred to as papoúli (grandad), who leads the second homily at Vatopedi, sets out to define the distinguishing features of the Orthodox faith.
“We’re not Protestants”, papoúli states. “It’s not enough to do the right thing, be kind, and do no harm. Our faith demands more. Much more! We must be at one with God.” And to do this, he explains that “we must cleanse the soul through confession. This leads to spiritual enlightenment, and ultimately, to theodicy.”
“Why bother with confession when our soul will be soiled again?” asks a doubter.
“Why shower knowing you will need to wash again?” papoúli responds.
I am reminded of the unwashed Sādhus I encountered in India decades ago and consider asking what distinguishes them from the holy men of the Orthodox faith. But I decide against it, choosing instead to ask about the difference between the Orthodox and Catholic faiths.
“The Catholic God is a judge (dikastēs)”, papoúli answers. “The Orthodox God is a loving God. Which explains Catholic guilt. Orthodox Christians feel shame because it arises not from divine judgment, but from disappointing the one who loves us.” This made some sense to someone who has always felt shame, and virtually no guilt.
Deeper into the homily, papoúli grows visibly cranky with the interjections of the doubter who has planted himself at the head of the table, arms folded. At first, the elderly monk responds curtly; soon, he becomes dismissive, brushing aside each objection as if swatting a persistent fly. The sceptic begins every challenge with “What I think”, to which the visibly annoyed monk snaps, “I don’t care what you think. Nobody here cares.”
“Hear, hear”, I say to myself, recognising that the younger me would have been far more irritating.
“The difference between psychiatry and spiritual healing”, papoúli continues, “is that psychiatry cannot extinguish sin. It can only mask it. No matter how advanced or sophisticated the drug, it cannot heal the soul.”
I begin to lose interest, mildly irritated by his reasoning, when he ventures into the complex matter of gender. It takes me back to conversations with my grandfather when I was a boy, making me realise that my papoúli was no different from this monastic papoúli in matters of gender, identity and sexuality.
I mentally withdraw, accepting that religious conservatism endures, however enlightened a society may imagine itself. It inhabits this homily, the holy relics, the skeletal remains of saints venerated in silver reliquaries, and the conversations that surround them, wherever they take place. But I have no intention of challenging beliefs as ossified as the relics they revere. I am here to soften my heart. To find peace.
^{A small chapel with three modest graves behind the walls of the Vatopedi monastery. (Photo supplied by Chris Fotinopoulos)}
On the final night of my stay at Mount Athos, I had the rare good fortune of having the dorm to myself and decided to sleep in after another late-night service. An early morning knock at the door woke me. It was Kyriakos, the newest of the Australian monks I had met on the day of my arrival, informing me that I would need to attend the liturgy, which would commence in forty minutes. He added that I should be punctual this time, as the congregation would later divide and head to separate churches.
When he left, I drifted back to sleep and fell into a strange dream, lost in a nondescript Australian suburb, its wide roads lined with dull, utilitarian shops. I woke, dressed into a long sleeve top, and made my way to the morning service. I lit a candle for the departed, as I had been doing for my entire monastic stay, and sat silently, listening to the haunting cadences of the liturgy for half an hour or so, until the lights came on and the worshippers began to file out.
I followed the smaller group that made its way to a chapel beyond the monastery walls, beside a modest cemetery where three black crosses stood stark against the faint light of dawn. I entered what I can only describe as the most beautiful church I have ever seen — not grand or gilded, but humble, adorned with simple iconography that glowed softly in the morning light.
At the end of the brief service, I kissed the priest’s hand as I took the holy bread (Antídōro), drank holy water from a tin cup for the first time during my monastic stay, and received Koliva. The Koliva — boiled wheat often mixed with sugar, nuts and dried fruits — is prepared for commemorations of the dead and symbolises everlasting life. I then made my way to the refectory, where it was announced that the boat would soon sail. For once, the sea was calm.
Among the forty or so boisterous pilgrims who boarded the ferry bound for the harbour town of Lerissos, situated just outside the monastic precinct, I was the sole traveller. Yet I did not feel alone. I had not felt so calm, so at peace.
Chris Fotinopoulos teaches English and Philosophy at Ivanhoe Grammar School in Melbourne. He is also a bioethicist who has taught medical ethics at the University of Melbourne and Monash University.
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