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National Geographic : 1913 Mar
Contents
THE OLDEST MONASTERY IN GREECE CLASS DISTINCTIONS AND PHOTOGRAPHY After breakfast I gathered the pil grims and people who had come up for the morning service for a picture. Most of them were as pleased as children, and they joked and jostled one another as they took their places, as any American holiday crowd would do under the same circumstances. But again I ran counter to prejudices based on class distinctions; three women, somewhat better dressed than the others, together with the aristo cratic Georgios, unmoved by my excla mation, "Photographia!" refused to be taken with the peasants. However, they were not nearly so interesting and pic turesque as their humbler countrymen, and their absence meant no loss. It seems almost ungrateful for one who has enjoyed the hospitality of the monks of Megaspelaeon to speak a word in criticism, yet if the truth be told they are an idle lot and have a bad reputation for honesty. A striking commentary on the place and the people is that I found each of their little terraced gardens strongly hedged in or fenced off from the main path and from the neighboring gardens. They were to be entered only by gates and the gates were padlocked. Similarly, even in remote parts of the monastery, the rooms were securely locked. What must be the conditions when the faithful have to take such extreme care to guard their possessions from :heir own num ber! THE NEGLECTED STATE OF MEGASPELIEON Further, the shabby, neglected state of the monastery gives the visitor an un- pleasant impression. A century ago, when the monks were under the scrutiny of the Turks, there was reason for their simulating poverty; but now the ruinous condition of their main building, in sharp contrast to their reputed wealth, gives their indifference the character of sac rilege. A British minister, Sir Thomas Wyse, who visited Megaspelaeon in 1858, well characterized it as a "great dormitory of religious commonplace, sleeper succeed ing to sleeper." Their building may be taken as an index of the general life of the monastery; all is today much as it has been for centuries, while the sun, the rain, and the winter storm have slowly carried on their work of destruction, making no slight havoc on the miserable wooden upper structure, in the repair of which the inactive monks have employed only the merest makeshifts. On retracing the path leading to the valley, as I turned and caught my last glimpse of the monastery, in the distance no longer dirty and dilapidated, but thor oughly picturesque as it hung half way up the cliff like a huge swallow's nest, I could not help thinking what a miserable life is that of the monks of Megaspelkon. They send out no missionaries or preach ers to the neglected people; they go through their services with considerable indifference; they have no interest in study; they write no books, nor do they, like certain orders in the Roman Church, care for the sick and the poor. What a living death! Dionysos' pallid face, his sad, yearning expression, and his quick hungry response to a few words of interest still linger in my memory. 323
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