The caique from Lavra shipwrecked

The caique from Lavra shipwrecked

by Michael M Nikoletseas
copyright ©2024 by Michael M Nikoletseas
Published in USA
(This is a new book about Athos. It is a continuation of the book The Caique from Lavra.)

End of August I could feel fall descending upon the skin of my arms. Summer had passed peaceful helping Father Prodromos with the chores of the archondariki making coffee for the pilgrims loukoumi and raki. On a couple of occasions Father Prodromos said

Mikhail get married or become a monk.

I kissed the hand of Father Prodromos my eyes wet and headed downhill to the arsanas with four or five others today the caique was coming.

The dirt road was wet and there was strong wind almost forcing us back. Waves broke on the rocks and jetted high up to the tower of the small port. A gendarme outside his office high up below the tower his back toward us paced back and forth raising his arms to the clouds.

The caique appeared in the midst of breaks of giant columns of white foam aiming the narrow mouth of the tiny port now lurching toward the dark rocks.

The pilgrims screamed and ran back uphill. The gendarme now facing us waved his arms telling us something or blessing us I could not tell. It was a dance the caique the gendarme the pilgrims over and over again like in an ancient drama. This was all the gendarme's doing.

The pilgrims left on a truck to Karyes later that day. Bad weather continued for days, the caique came and the dance was repeated, then there was no caique winter no pilgrims. Father Athanasios, whose age nobody knew said on a dark December night an angel swooped over the little port and lifted the caique up into a pitch black sky with the handsome policeman onboard.

He was weeping, waving his arms toward the Lavra, like a child the cop like a baby.

None of the monks believed Father Athanasios who himself vanished in the desert on the west side of Athos.

(will continue)

Nov 1 2024. I just returned from Mt Athos. I was invited by Konstamonitou monastery so I could stay and study this, allegedly, last remnant of Athonite monasticism and be able to continue my donations. Since the monastery has no hospital, no doctor, no nurse, I intended to organize and fund the creation of a rudimentary hospital. Additionally I was planning to train the monk who takes care of the medical needs of the fathers. I was ignored during my stay, It seems that my donations were not welcome, and my proposal to create a hospital generated aggression in some of them.

My prayers in church were permanently disrupted after two monks on two occasions, asked me to leave church. I am Christian Orthodox in my eighties, thick white beard, difficulties with walking. Another monk grabbed me and forcefully pushed me back onto a seat.

There were other problems too, however the coup de grace came when I discovered that the election of the current abbot, Fr Haralambos signals a departure from Athonite monasticism which the late Abbott Agathon so valiantly defended. Father Haralambos' concept of Christian Orthodoxy is alien to Athonite monasticism. He comes from controversial para-ecclesiastical organisations which historically have been affiliated with the Greek government including extreme right, dictatorships which savagely persecuted Greek citizens who opposed their fascist ideology.