Connecting with the Divine - Meteora Monasteries

This article was written during my participation in the University of Toronto field course, POL300Y0: Modern Greek Culture: People, Tradition, Language and Cuisine, based in Athens, Greece. The course instructor is Dr. Themistoklis Aravossitas from the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. The sources for the photo and texts used in this article are all shown at the bottom.

Βέλτιστοι γιγνόμεθα προς τους θεούς βαδίζοντες.

– Πυθαγόρας, 580-490 BC, Ancient Greek Philosopher

Whether you are religious or not, you have probably seen monasteries (buildings for monks, nuns, and prayers), but have you seen monasteries that are built on top of cliffs? Meteora (Μετέωρα) is a series of rocks that host six ancient monasteries of Eastern Orthodox. The monasteries were built between the 13th and 14th centuries, and they will offer you a unique experience of nature, history, and architecture. The Meteora is also recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage site because of its historical and archaeological values.

Between the 9th and the 10th century, some hermit monks came to this place and isolated themselves in the caves that were scattered among the area. The local people were very kind and supported them with food, water, clothing, wood...In the 12th century, a monk named Nilos organized the monks and issued rules for everyone to follow. In the 14th century, monk Athanasios established the Great Meteoron (Μεγάλο Μετέωρο) on the second-highest rock, and gradually the number of monasteries reached 24 in the 16th century. Today, only 6 out of those 24 remain active for people to visit. We visited the Great Meteoron (Μεγάλο Μετέωρο) and Agios Stefanos (Αγίου Στεφάνου).

Great Meteoron means "suspended in the air," and it is the largest and oldest monastery. The bus stopped at the foot of the hill, and we climbed the stone stairs. The view from the Great Meteoron is astonishing, and I'm personally amazed by how they managed to construct this building complex with such limited conditions.

Walking into the monastery, we saw the post-Byzantine art. Some paintings do not have faces, which our tour guide said is probably because of superstitious practices: people believe those holy figures could cure their diseases, thus taking the pigments of those paintings to apply to themselves.

Agios Stefanos means Saint Stephen in English. Compared to the others, it is the most accessible one, since we simply cross a small bridge to go inside. This monastery is the only two convents out of the six monasteries with nuns (the other one is the monastery of Roussanou). The other four are all male monasteries with monks. Across all six monasteries, there are 50 nuns and 17 monks.

One thing our group encountered was when our tour guide talked about the history of Agios Stefanos and how it used to ban women from entering, and even forbidden female animals, one of the nuns passed him a leaflet and told him to read and follow the scripts written there. Our tour guide said he always had problems with the nuns. They, in general, are very pious and thus probably don't want to hear what our tour guide told us.

I'm not religious, but this place still attracts me somehow by its excellent combination of history and nature. It also reminds me of my homeland China, which also has remains of ancient buildings on top of rocks. However, unfortunately, most ancient Chinese architectures were built from wood that didn't last as long as the Meteora.

References

[1] Γνωμικολογικον, Αποφθέγματα, Γνωμικά, Αφορισμοί, Ρητά, Παροιμίες, https://www.gnomikologikon.gr/catquotes.php

[2] Meteora, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteora

[3] Meteora Monasteries, visitmeteora.travel,  https://visitmeteora.travel/meteora-monasteries/

[4] Meteora, UNESCO World Heritage Convention, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/455/

[5] Monastery, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monastery

[6] The Ultimate Guide to Visiting Meteora in Greece, 2022, https://www.roadaffair.com/guide-to-visiting-meteora/