Yearning for a return to Holy Mount Athos [Dor de o întoarcere în Sfântul Munte Athos]

Billions of people living on earth may have never heard of this place, although they may owe their lives to the prayers rising without cease to the Lord from there.

Out of the much fewer people who are aware of Holy Mount Athos’ existence, many may have diverging opinions. They are far from understanding what it is.

At best, some found it fit to give it as an example of an unique cultural heritage of humanity and make it a topic of an international conference reaching its third edition in 2013.

Some see it merely as a historic relic, a monastic republic with a special autonomous status within Greece, which shouldn’t burden the country’s budget anymore.

Others see it as an outpost of gender segregation, as women have not been officially allowed on the peninsula since 1060. Actually, the ban was a few centuries old by then.

Anyway, not a human law, but the Most Holy Mother of God (Theotokos) was the one who forbade the entry of women in this spiritual oasis reserved to men.

Beyond truncated perspectives like the above, Holy Mount Athos is incomprehensibly more than just a physical place, it’s a trancendental reality, a gateway to the Kingdom of God.

Every day, and especially every night, mankind (not just the Orthodox believers) is kept alive by the prayers of the fewer than 2,000 monks living on this Holy Mountain.

It’s not the sort of comforting prayer for those who have already been striken by misfortunes, but the kind of prayer preventing bad things to happen to our gone mad world.

To our secular contemporaries this makes no sense. How could prayers – seen as nothing more than meaningless words sent to a hypotethical God – actually work, they ask?

For me, all three things that I had been told about the Holy Mountain before visiting it appear to have already come true or are in the process of turning into reality…

First: one visit is not enough to understand such a realm where the earth briges the sky; no matter how much you discovered, you’d still feel that there’s so much more to find out.

Second: equally true was the warning that, after having set foot there once, you’d be yearning for another visit. And another, and another, and another…

Third: implacably, as soon as you get there, you’re off for a life-changing experience. Although this change may not happen instantaneously, it will certainly come.

Even if it were to take years before fully sprouting in your heart – assuming you’re not totally heartless – you can’t avoid the feeling that change (hopefully for the better) is on the way…

[For all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]

God’s place in a humanist society (22) [Locul lui Dumnezeu într-o societate umanistă]

Has pro-islam gone too far in the UK over the past years? Aren’t Muslims granted excessively many facilities in order not to feel uncomfortable within the British society?

And isn’t it inconsistent – if not outrightly hypocritical –  to see this politically correct concern not to hurt the feelings of Muslims, while Christians are pressured not to wear crosses in public, as this might be ‘offensive’ to other people?

No matter how irreligious many Brits would consider themselves to be, what sane human being wouldn’t notice how far this madness has gone?!

If I were to offer one last (at least for now :-) example of how Muslims are pampered, here are two relevant pictures from the University of Sussex. 

In the second pic, Muslim religious items (books and a prayer rug) are publicly displayed through a window.

The first image is even more problematic, as it shows the (double!) entrance to the Muslim Student Center. Never mind the fact that Christians don’t have a center of their own.

They can also express freely in the secular campus, organize gatherings, spread leaflets, put posters etc. 

The weird thing is that, in a humanist university, with up to 70% female students attending some faculties, gender segregation is allowed. For Muslims only, obviously.

[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]