Back From Mt Athos

MtAthos and St Paul’s Monastery I’m at the university of Thessaloniki in a computer room.  It is Monday Jan 24th, noon my time.  Had a great ride back yesterday from Mt Athos.  We were able to catch a ferry that took us down the peninsula before returning back to Daphne ( the main port of Athos) and our trip "Out" ( they call leaving Athos going out) to Ouranopoli.  It was a crystal clear day and we had our first view of the actual mountain of Athos . It is huge snow covered peak which looks much like Mt Rainier in terms of its perspective to everything else. We were able to see several other monasteries and theSkete of St Anne along the way. The Skete of St Anne is a collection of small cabins, huts, and small churches precariously perched on steep rock faces, some only accessible by ladder or narrow trail. Supplies are packed in or carried by donkey. I have some great photos of it. If I ever get back toAthos it definitely is a place I want to go. It was a great way to end the trip since much of the rest of trip was rainy or over cast.

We were able to stay at five monasteries, each very different.  Travel on Athos is a logistical challenge since there are only very primitive roads. With only one day at each monastery allowed with out permission from the Abbot we were on the move constantly.   There are several small four wheel drive vans that go between Karyes ( a small town on the east side ) and Daphne, the main port and arrival point, and the monasteries. 

Athos is is like stepping back in time literally and figuratively. The monasteries are over a 1000 years old and although some have modernconvieniences (like centeral heating, toilets and electricity) they are very primitive.

Peter A Serko

About five or six years ago I Googled my name, Peter Serko.  I found a number of Serkos with various first names but to my surprise I found a Peter A Serko (I’m Peter J. Serko).  I don’t recall now exactly what the website where his name appeared was or what it said since it was in Ukrainian but it was business related and it had an email address for Peter.  I took a chance and composed a short email note of introduction and sent it. 

About two weeks later out of the blue I got an email from Peter.  He clearly spoke enough English to be able to read my email and compose an understandable reply.  At the time he was married; wife Victoria and daughter Lena.  Lena is the same age as our daughter Alice and is in the second year of college.  Since then they have had another child Dasha. They live in Dnipropetrovs’k, an industrial city, on the River Dnieper in central Ukraine. He is involved in some way with a forging company that makes buckets or blades for tractors and bulldowsers.  I have never been quite clear if he has an ownership stake in the company. 

Over the years we traded emails about basic things, since the language barrier prevents anything too indepth and have exchanged packages with a few gifts once.  For almost a year we lost touch since I misplaced his address, he finally wrote and we were back on track. 

I just got a Orthodox Christmas greeting email with the picture that appears above attached.  A beautiful family!  It is always odd to get an email from him because my Inbox from field says: Peter Serko.  I think "humm.. I didn’t send myself an email did I?".

He noted in his email how happy they were with the election of Yuschenko and how hopefully they are that a democratic government will address the big problems that the country faces.  I replied telling him how distrought we were at the election of Bush.

My hope is that at some point in the future we will be able to meet in person. 

Opera… you’ve got to be kidding!

One of the unexpected surprises of reaching middle age is a sudden interest in opera.  Up until about two years ago I had never given it a thought.  Although I had gone to my first opera in my mid-40s (La Boehme at Glimmerglass Opera in Copperstown, NY), I wasn’t that enthralled; in hindsight I guess I wasn’t ready.

Sue purchased tickets at Seattle Opera for the 2002-03 season.  I wasn’t the least bit interested in going.  She arranged with our friend Gregory, an opera goer for more than 30 years and a real amateur authority on the subject (more on that later) to accompany her.  At the time Seattle Opera was in the midst of building a new opera house and was using a modified hockey arena next door as the opera house.  While surprisely functional, it was certainly less than ideal. When she couldn’t make one of the performances I decided to fill in.  The Sunday afternoon performance was Donizetti’s Don Pasquale.  There was something about the whole experience that grabbed me.  Never really a patron of the arts, I certainly wasn’t in my element but I just enjoyed the pace of everything.  Perhaps it is my longtime fascination with anyone who truly excels at any endeavor.  To hear the human voice do amazing gyrations, to hear a woman fill a hockey arena with masterfully controlled sound is awe inspiring (Ewa Podles in Norma was simply stunning).  That week I bought tickets for the remainder of the season, I just had to keep going. 

What was fortuitous is having Gregory as a resource.  He is an amazing reservoir of opera knowledge.  He owns a vast collection of opera music with multiple versions of many operas, in fact it seems to be the exception that he has one of anything.  A while back I mentioned that I heard that Franco Correlli had died last year after listening to the NY Metropolitan Opera’s weekly radio broadcast intermission discussion (away fascinating) talking about his career.  The next Sunday I had three disks of music spanning his entire career.  I regularly get supplied with CDs of upcoming operas. 

One great learning experience is to listen to different performances of the same opera.  Every artist brings a unique element to a roll.  My first experience with really understanding this was La Traviata.  I first heard this marvelous Verdi opera on a Met broadcast.  Soprano Renae Fleming played Violetta and at the end of Act I she did something with her voice that I had never heard before called coloratura.  Gregory subsequently supplied me with several versions, one of my favorites is a bargain bin version on the VOX label (1996) featuring Virginia Zeani as Violetta. Another favorite features Montserrat Caballe along with Carlo Bergonzi, and Sherrill Milnes (1967 RCA).  For Christmas I received a version with Joan Sutherland, Bergonzi, Merrill and Pritchard (Decca 1963 recently remastered).  Although Joan Sutherland is fabulous as one would expect, I prefer Caballe.

A month or two after hearing it from the Met I discovered the opera was playing in a few months up in Vancouver, BC; we had tickets in a matter of minutes.  By the time the Vancouver performance rolled around I was thoroughly familiar with the opera from beginning to end.  The live performance did not disappoint, I loved it.  There is nothing like finally connecting the music to the story dramatically.  Once you make that connection it makes subsequent listenings all the richer since one really knows what is going on (language and unusual names does make it hard to keep things straight).

Interesting Opera Links:

Met Opera Guild

Met Radio Broadcast Schedule for this year

Aria Database

Seattle Opera

Trip To Mt Athos

Simono Petra Monastery I have never been much of an adventurer ( my friends from my younger days may say otherwise!), usually preferring to stick around the house puttering in the garden.  While many of my friends traveled the world over the years I’ve been content to hold up here on the "rock" (Vashon Island) with my family and gardening projects.

Back in the fall I half heartedly (that is the safest method) mentioned to my Orthodox friend Patrick that we should make a trip to Mt Athos sometime.  Of course, not thinking that my proposal would amount to anything I forgot about it.  In early December he dropped me an email indicating that something was in the works via a priest friend in Thessalonki, Greece.  Leave it to Patrick to really move on such things, if it were up to me to organize it would never happen.  Forced to make a decision I procrastinated awhile, tried to find reasons not to go, and finally put the brakes on my "do nothing" inertia and made a flight reservation (quite a reasonable one I might add, $738).  It helped that another friend, Gregory, was excited to go along too. 

Truth be told this is the trip of the lifetime.  One can go to Rome or Paris at anytime but Mt Athos is something special.  With over 20 monasteries and many smaller sketes (small groups of monks) and hermitages (yes, there are even hermits living in caves and tiny dwellings on the cliffs) the isolated Athos peninsula of Chalkidiki it is a spiritual oasis, a throw back to a different era.  In Greek it is called "Agion Oros" or "Holy Mountain".  Athos has been a monastic enclave for more than a millennium.  The first official monastery was the Great Lavra founded in 983 by St. Athanasios.  At its peak in the 15th century Athos had 40 functioning monasteries with 40,000 monks.

The Apostle Peter
12th C. Mt Athos is not a tourist destination.  Access is tightly controlled with permission required to enter and stays usually limited to four days (we are staying a week).  Non-Orthodox are allowed but in small numbers.  No women are allowed anywhere on the penisula.  Accommodations for pilgrims I’m told are simple but comfortable (although not much hot water!).  Hospitality is a fundamental monastic virtue, so guests are treated with great respect. 

The great monasteries of Athos resemble mediaeval cities with large fortified walls often perched precariously on steep mountain cliffs.  Architectural influences are varied from Greek. Russian to Ottoman.  As one would expect the church or Katholikon is the central focus.  Many priceless ecclesiastical treasures of the Orthodox Church including icons, codecs, and relics of saints are housed within their walls.  One of the goals of any pilgrimage to Athos is to see the great treasures and venerate holy objects.  The frescoes, mosaics and iconography on Mt Athos represent all the major "schools" of Orthodox iconography throughout the centuries. 

Of course, simply being in a place where monastics have prayed and worshiped for centuries, where many of the spiritual giants of Orthodoxy live and have lived is spiritually uplifting in itself.  We will try to stay at at least three monasteries and will visit several others weather permitting.  Getting around Athos is not easy.  One typically walks between monastaries on trails or primitive roads.  Since it is winter, conditions can be quite foul and travel difficult.  After all I’m 50… we shall see.  At any rate, we will be attending services and adapting ourselves to life on "Byzantine Time".  Mt Athos is on the Julian or "Church Calendar", thirteen days behind the civil or Gregorian calendar.  Time is calculated based on sunset which is always 12 PM.  Daily life is structured around the 24 hr cycle of services. 

We will be fortunate to be there for a major feast day of the Church, Theophany Jan 6/16 (Orthodox Epiphany; the date is shown Julian/Gregorian).  Although I’m not sure of the service schedule I believe there will be an All-Night Vigil which will start early evening (3am Byzantine time about 9pm) and run all night.  If the monastery is close to the sea the service will eventually end up down at the shore for the "Great Blessing of Waters".  I’m sure it will be exhausting and totally "mind-blowing"!

History of Mt Athos

History of Orthodox Monasticism

The Monasteries of Mt Athos