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A blast of wind pushes me ahead, slamming me in opposition to the rocky path’s edge. The partition is just round 5 inches excessive and my coronary heart races as I eye the 305-meter drop to the glowing Aegean. Decided, I flip to sort out the remainder of the 295 snaking stone steps, and catch a glimpse of a white dot on the craggy cliffs.
The painted sliver I see glued to the rock is Panayia Khozoviotissa, a Greek Orthodox Monastery inbuilt 1088. I’m on Amorgos, the jap many of the Cyclades Islands and I’ve endured the nine-hour ferry trip from Athens specifically to see this architectural marvel.
The monastery is 5 yards extensive and eight tales excessive. From a distance, it seems like a white-gloved fist, clamped tightly on a rugged wall.
Khozoviotissa embraces the natural custom of Greek monasteries, harmonizing and mixing with its surrounding panorama.
It takes me a supernatural quantity of power simply to achieve it. By the point I get to the highest, I’m raveled and wheezing. My pal Anthony Vlavianos, a 78-year-old Athens-based architect and photographer who has accompanied me on this jaunt, is unfazed.
Vlavianos, who summers yearly on the 47-square-mile island the place his mother and father had been born, goes to introduce me to the monastery’s head monk, Father Spiros, whom he has recognized since he was a boy.
“Each step up is a step nearer to God,” he says, nodding towards the ultimate few steps to the doorway. Apparently it was much more tough some years again. “You used to need to climb a movable wood ladder as much as the door,” he explains.
All the monastery is a hodge-podge of add-ons and gildings.
The three-foot-tall excessive wood door is topped with a gothic arch, a signature of the Venetians who occupied the island within the 15th century. The door’s carved marble jambs had been added through the 1686 renovations.
The Greek juniper beams projecting from the northeast wall could have been right here because the starting. Nevertheless, the entrance entrance corridor seems comparatively new. Squeezing by the minuscule entrance, I discover myself in a whitewashed corridor furnished with wood chest and plaque commemorating the unique founder, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus who dominated from 1081-1118.
A slim staircase hewn from the rock winds upward and on the prime stands a priest in black cassock and cylindrical hat. He glares at me. “Women should put on a skirt. Present respect,” he says in uneven English.
Fortunately, I’ve a scarf in my bag, which doubles as a sarong-style skirt. I scuttle right down to the touchdown and wrap it round my center then inch again up the steps. The priest nods in approval, not seeming to care about my denims poking out under.
He is among the three resident monks, a far cry from a century in the past when 100 lived right here. He leads us up extra rock steps to the sitting room. Portraits of previous bishops line the partitions, and a small brass chandelier lights the area.
I perch on the crushed crimson velvet sofa and an assistant arrives with a tray of sugar-dusted sweets and Greek espresso. There are additionally small glasses of psimeni, a sort of Amogos brandy. I take a sip of the honey-infused spirit and a cinnamon-spiced heat spreads by my physique. Scrumptious.
“Years in the past,” Vlavianos says, “there was no electrical energy and water needed to be hauled up with donkeys.” He factors at a whitewashed cubbyhole on the identical degree because the sitting room with a small range and sinks full with working taps. “There’s operating water now, however donkeys nonetheless carry within the provides,” he says.
A rumble of laughter erupts from under, adopted by the sound of rustling robes and heavy steps. A sun-weathered face with fly-away beard emerges from the slim staircase.
“Papas Spiros! How are you?” Vlavianos exclaims, leaping from the sofa and clasping his hand. Though Father Spiros doesn’t converse English, he smiles broadly and gestures for us to observe for a tour.
He leads us to the unique kitchen, now a space for storing for development supplies – planks of wooden and instruments. The beehive oven, not in use, is stacked with sheets of drywall.
“Rockslides. They occur on a regular basis they usually need to do repairs,” Vlavianos explains. One other room is piled excessive with skinny mattresses. “These are used on the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin each Nov. 21. Folks come from all around the island and lots of keep in a single day.”
Vlavianos and I observe Father Spiros into the chapel, which is about two meters extensive and four-and-a-half meters lengthy. It’s the place probably the most valuable possession resides, an icon generally known as the “Panayia,” or Holy Virgin.
The icon, Vlavianos tells me, is claimed to have come from Palestine, from the Monastery of the Most Holy Virgin of Khoziba. It was carried to Cyprus by Christians who had been persecuted by Arabs within the ninth century, then smashed in two by iconoclasts and thrown out to sea the place a present transported it to the foot of Mt. Prophet Elijah.
The items had been rejoined, and a small church was inbuilt honor of the miracle. In 1088, Emperor Alexius Comnenus had the monastery inbuilt the identical spot.
In a dimly illuminated nook, the icon is hidden underneath a worn silver cowl and surrounded by an ornately carved wood body. A case full of watches and pendants sits close by.
“Given in thanks by those that have had their prayers answered,” whispers Vlavianos. Each Easter and for the total week after, the clergymen take the icon on a procession across the island.
Just like the historical past of the icon, the constructing of the monastery is steeped in miracle and thriller. Nobody is aware of who the builders had been, the one clue is a chisel inside a glass case tucked in a chapel alcove.
“The story says that every night time the grasp builder would depart his instruments in a single spot and within the morning, they might be discovered hanging on a nail in one other spot,” says Vlavianos.
I spy the spike on a pillow in one of many instances.
Father Spiros leads us out to a balcony that appears to hover in area, excessive above the glistening Aegean. The priest leans on the balcony ledge and appears out on the sea. The sensible blue merges into the horizon, and water and sky, freed from boats and airplanes, seamlessly turn out to be one. The impact is disorienting and luxurious. Civilization has vanished.
“What’s it prefer to dwell in such a spot?” I ask.
Father Spiros turns and his arm sweeps previous the cliffs, the whitewashed partitions of the monastery and out in direction of the ocean. His blue eyes twinkle and his hearty voice echoes off the rocky backdrop. Vlavianos interprets.
“Perfection.”
This put up can be accessible in:
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