After prayer and breakfast the next day, I left Vatopedi monastery for the holy monastery of Simonos Petras. This was close to the port of Dafni, so I planned to take a bus to Dafni and a ferry from there. When I got there, because 1 May is a Greek holiday I was not quite sure whether the ferry timetable would run as planned, and I could not find anyone to ask who could tell me the answer in English. So as I had enjoyed my walk from Karyes to Vatopedi, I decided to walk again. This time, instead of going along and down, the road went up and up – and up.
I was pretty tired by the time the road levelled out, but I enjoyed the view.
What I didn’t know is that a bus comes and goes to Simonos Petras monastery and I could have caught that! A bus passed by but it was full! Never mind, despite a few aches, I was really quite happy to walk as it was part of that whole thing of going on pilgrimage. And also I had again that wonderful sense of suddenly seeing my destination. It was truly awe-inspiring.
The Holy monastery of Simonos Petra is set 1,000 feet above the water, to give added protection against the pirates and other attackers that used to plague the monasteries of the Holy Mountain.
As I gazed at it I thought that Peter Jackson could hardly have imagined it in a Lord of the Rings film, but this was real. Once again, there was scaffolding here as upgrading work was being done to this monastery. But when I reached the monastery, I found was that much of it was in a beautiful state of repair. It was truly out of this world.
I received a warm welcome from the Guest Master who spoke good English, and just as at Vatopedi, this monk explained the programme for the monastery. I asked here whether I could speak to a monk about the Jesus prayer, and he said that he would arrange it. After Vespers and dinner we had the veneration of the relics and then Fr Makarios, a French monk who spoke good English took me aside so that we could have a conversation, which I found both helpful and inspiring. It occurred to me as we spoke that the Orthodox emphasis on veneration of the holy helps them to grow in the love and worship of God. I certainly thought that we could do with a bit more veneration of what is holy in the Anglican Church in New Zealand.
The next morning I got up early for the liturgy, which went from before I arrived at 5.30am till about 9am (it was a Sunday after all!). Then we had lunch! After that the Guest Master invited all the guests up to the reception room and proceeded to give us all a CD and a book. I really felt blessed by this visit. I received so much from the beauty of the place and the worship, from my conversation with Fr Makarios, and then in a book on prayer by one of the monastery’s elders and in a beautiful CD of worship music. I felt very humbled by all these gifts.
One of the monks then took us by bus to Dafni, where I needed to wait for a couple of hours for the ferry to the final monastery on monastery, the holy monastery of Xenophon – known more generally as Xenophontos monastery.
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