..from an unholy (BC) mountain, with demonic idols scattered on its shores!
The Sunday of the "Athonite Fathers" (9th Sunday after Easter or 2nd Sunday after Pentecost) is dedicated by the Manna-Church to the Athonite Holy Fathers. Those God-loving people who lived throughout time, over a period of approximately 1200 years and more (9th century – 21st century AD) on the Holy Mountain of the Athenians, the Holy Mountain of Athos, and fought psychosomatically against Satan and his gang, for the love and glory of God! With the 'wings' of Love and Humility, they flew towards God like eagles - aided by Divine Grace - and reached unimaginable heights of spiritual progress and evolution, united with God and the "Church of the Firstborn" and now live eternally in the unspeakable Light...!
The Holy Athonite Fathers, with their over a thousand-year 'life and state', accumulated inexhaustible Spiritual riches in the secret 'treasury' of Heaven, treasures of martyr's blood and ascetic sweat... lavishly poured out in the 'vineyard' of God, for the Love of Christ! Their unique nickname "Athonite Fathers" defines a separate 'category' of Saints, which includes Sun-like Children of God from various 'orders' of the Heavenly Triumphant Church. And as mentioned in the holy Apolytikion of the Feast, the 'Athonite' nickname covers a multidimensional spiritual "Hero" with: "Confessor and Holiness, Hierarch and Martyr..." [ 1 ] who make up the venerable Hagiology of the "Holy Athonite Fathers", of which the Manna-Church of the Orthodox East "is ashamed" (boasts... modestly, unproudly).
The Holy Monastery has been inaccessible to women since the time of its male Monastic settlement (9th century AD), as the "Athonite Lady" and Queen of Angels took it under Her protection and responsibility! With the "ABATON", the Virgin Mary 'secured' Her right to rule, as She wishes, over Her Athonite Privy! To preserve, i.e. Mount Athos from worldly influences… and to cover it with Her Sanctuary of Maforion from potential dangers, which would test the psycho/biological balances [ 1 ] and endurance of Her 'adopted orphans' (humble monks) who look to Her… as Mother, Nourisher, Educator, Helper, Protector, and Champion General… in their invisible war with Satan and his vile gang!
But, even if Agionoros is UNACCEPTABLE to women (and this, for reasons of spiritual restlessness and mental peace of the monks there), its Blessing is nevertheless co-ACCEPTABLE to the souls of women... and, in fact, more than that of men, who freely enter (therefore, perhaps, arrogantly...) Athos! Because, as a friend, a lawyer from Argostoli, Kefalonia, aptly emphasizes: "Those of us who wanted and want (I certainly don't, even if the unacceptable rule were abolished!) to go there... let us ask ourselves honestly: what exactly are we asking from Agionoros...? Because, if we don't ask ourselves, and insist on wanting to go... we would be copying the usual frivolous 'travel mentality' of men: "Since so many people are doing tourism in Agionoros... why shouldn't we do it too?", remaining, like many of them, 'untouched' by the Grace of the Mount..."!
With the AVATON of the Athonite peninsula, which the Most Holy Theotokos rightfully instituted for Her 'Orchard', "a truly FEMINIST RIGHT is established..., a completely legitimate 'feminist' claim of the First and Perfect Woman, who wants to protect Her property from any potential encroachment by would-be invaders...", as the aforementioned friend Nomikos writes verbatim, perfectly documenting it with legal arguments about entitlement, in her open letter to the pseudo-feminist MEP (...), when she furiously raised the issue of the AVATON in the European Parliament 25 years ago. Any 'other' view on this is understandable... but unfair, unsympathetic, incorrect and completely unsubstantiated... from a legal point of view!
Because, as the same lawyer friend expresses it excellently: "The philosophy of entitlement that is advancing today finds before it a Workshop of virtues around the face of the Lady Theotokos, who in Her name radiate internationally to those who believe, great spiritual and material gifts! There is no house or woman that did not benefit when her husband visited the Mount of the Theotokos! There is no woman who 'jealoused' the Mount, and the Theotokos was not 'given' to her and did not visit her! And indeed to such an extent... that we can say that it is 'better' for us women to never go there, than to go! We are given a higher perspective, a deeper reason, to beg the Virgin Mary, instead of us going there and altering Her house, that She may come and visit us in our house..."!
Athos still 'holds' upright and spiritually heaven-turned, in an era when everything around us is earth-turned... shaking... tilting... and collapsing...! And not only that (that it supposedly now functions 'conservatively' as... a nostalgic memory of "past glories, which when recounted make you cry..."), but that, above all, it continues to function as a spiritual 'Womb': ceaselessly giving birth to Saints Neophanes..., as an 'incubator' of Holiness that it was ordained to be! As many of the Saints [ 2 ] who have been included in the Orthodox Hagiography in recent years were "born and nurtured" of Athonite Monasticism, as a logical continuation of the over-thousand-year-old Agiotokia of a fully-sown, blooming and fruitful "Orchard of the Mother of God"...!
REFERENCES-FOOTNOTES
[ 1 ] “Let us honor the Fathers and angels of Mount Athos in the body, Confessors and Saints, Hierarchs and Martyrs, in hymns and odes, imitating their virtues. The entire multitude of monks on the Mount, shouting in unison: Glory to you who sanctified us, glory to you who crowned us, glory to you who, in our dangers, showed us your protectors.” (From the hymnology of the Feast)
INTERPRETATION: Let us honor, with hymns and praises, the Holy Athonite Fathers, these flesh-bearing angels: the Confessors and Saints, the Hierarchs and Martyrs, striving to imitate their virtues in practice. The entire multitude of Mount Athos monks, let us cry out to them in unison: Glory to Him who sanctified you, glory to Him who crowned you, glory to Him who made you our protectors, in the dangers that threaten us…
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[ 2 ] How can the psycho/biological balances and resilience of the Athonite people be 'disturbed' by the 'tourist' approach of visitors...!
Port of Ierissos, about 25 years ago, shortly before the departure for Agionori. A mother - my blessed mother! - bids farewell to her son who is returning to Athos, after a brief reunion. As she embraces him affectionately, she whispers in his ear: "When will I see you again... my child?" - "Oh, mother, after a few years again... first God!" [up to this point I was speaking seriously… but I continued, jokingly, on the occasion of the then recent 'raising' in the European Parliament of the issue of lifting the Athonite ABAT… by a tragic figure of a KKE member of parliament], "Besides… and if you do it, mother, it's a matter of praying to the Virgin Mary, to… abolish the ABAT, so you can come whenever you want to the door of the Monastery!..."
Who would have a greater 'right' to enter and visit Mount Athos, if there were no ABATON, than... the mother of a Monk, who could thus visit her child without restrictions, whenever she desired...?!?
The response of the mother of a "BAD OLD MAN... from the Holy Mountain of GOOD OLD MANS" was unpredictable and subversive... more reminiscent, rather than a human mother, of a she-wolf... who feels that her wolf cub is threatened: "Noooooo! If a female is to enter Agionoros... may I never see you again for the rest of my life!..." Of course, we became a 'number' in the entire port...
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[ 3 ] An unforgettable memory from my first encounter with a Saint (already officially listed in the Hagiography of the Orthodox Church).
Easter 1980… Still a student, hosted by my beloved Danielians, I had the great blessing of meeting the Venerable Elder Ephraim Katounakiotis, who had come with two of his subordinates - Good Friday afternoon - to the Hermitage of the Athonite Fathers, for the Great Saturday encomiums. We were about 10-12 laypeople, half young students and half adults, and after Communion we asked the Venerable Elder Ephraim to tell us a few words of spiritual benefit. The Elder Ascetic was sitting between his 2 subordinates, and we 12 laypeople were sitting in a semicircle facing him, in the courtyard of the Danielians, under the arbor of the Hermitage, with a view in front of us of the 'vast blue' of the Aegean Sea...
The Holy Elder Ephraim was silently bowed before him… and we, with bated breath, waited in absolute silence to listen, admiring his Holy form and his silently ‘blatant’ silence…! At some point, before the Holy Elder even spoke, the silence was ‘broken’… by the voice of one of the adults in the group. He was a Judge-Appellate from Thessaloniki, who had recently entered the life in Christ, and was possessed by an unbridled enthusiasm about Orthodox Spirituality! He, therefore, spoke first: “Elder, how many years have you lived on Mount Athos?” The Holy Elder, without raising his head from the ground, answered curtly: “Fifty years…”!
The reaction of the impulsive -otherwise sympathetic- Mr. Efetis, to the Elder's response, left us frozen... embarrassed... and with a 'wish' for the 'earth to open' so we could hide from shame...: "Wow...! 50 years in this wilderness... fifty years without a woman!!!..." We were all bitten... and we would like to... slap Mr. Efetis, who... thought out loud, but we waited in shameful silence... for the response of the imposing Elder.
Indeed, the God-bearing Elder did not need to 'think' at all, and he immediately replied only this... and nothing else: "Fathers and brothers, if tonight the Lady Theotokos receives Her Grace from this Holy Mountain, and the Athonite Monks remain uncovered and unprotected by Her Motherly Shelter, tomorrow at noon in the port of Daphne 1500+ monks - and I among them! - will be jostling among themselves to see who will be the first to board the ship to go into the world to get married... because, no longer, they will be able to endure celibacy!"
We were shocked and speechless... all of us - and the Judge first of all - because we understood, from the humble 'experiential word' of the Holy Elder Ephraim, that: What is happening on Athos - and generally everywhere in Orthodox Monasticism - is NOT natural... but supernatural!... A simple 'good will' of the Monks (no matter how brave they are, if we assume they are), cannot 'suspend' their carnal nature for life... so that they can live happily and peacefully in this otherworldly wilderness... and fight unyieldingly against sin and passions, unconcerned with biological 'trouble'... and 'against' the (any/any) carnal desires of their nature...!
