Friends of Mt. Athos

I enjoyed this trip through Mt. Athos from the lense of an outsider. Of special interest to me were the descriptions of the icons, their history and their presence.

I expected I was the only person in the space, until I sensed another presence emanating, inexplicably, from the icon of St. Anne. Her face was blackened from centuries of devotional candles. The instinct of an art historian might be to accurately date it, or even to clean it. This was a welcome thought that put me safely in the driver’s seat of this encounter. But then all such ambition evaporated, and it felt more like the icon wanted to clean me. I looked into Anne and Mary’s blackened faces. With enough prayer and candle smoke, I suppose every icon is on its way to becoming black.

The story of the the Gatekeeper icon is one of those wonderous Orthodox tales of which I am so fond. The combination of the material and the spiritual lodges powerful concepts in my mind.