Finally, we stopped at Ouranoupoli (within sight of the island) for about an hour before we headed back to
I ended up having a coffee with the priests. I had a really interesting conversation with Fr Panayoti, the second priest at our parish. Our little town of
Just at our parish of
And the clergy in the
The top and bottom photos are of the old fortress in Ouranoupoli, located right at the port. The middle photo is of the local parish for the residents of Ouranoupoli.
The boat ride from the main land to the veesaki (little island) of Amouliani took only about 20 or 30 minutes. It is located between the second and third fingers of the Halkidiki peninsula, and has a wonderful view of Mt Athos.
It also has some beautiful beaches – and little else. But what else do you need? The water is crystal clear. I have heard many people say that the beaches of Halkidiki are the finest in the world, and I have no reason to dispute that.
We arrived on the island around 12:30, and Fr Alexei told us we had free time to wander around until 5. Pelagia and I went first to a little restaurant on the water and had something to eat. In the top photo, you see Pelagia looking over the side from our table down into the water, where thousands of little fish swirled around. Diners would frequently throw a piece of bread into the water, which the fish would swarm.
The second photo is of the restaurant as we walked away – what a lovely location!
After lunch, we walked about a mile or two across the island to what we were told was the best beach. We weren’t disappointed! The third photo is of Pelagia entering the beach from the path we followed, and the last photo is of her taking a nap. What a great way to spend the afternoon!
Later, when we met back up with the group, Fr Gregory (the priest-monk) admitted to us that he even went for a swim, albeit in a secluded place where no one else was. The weather here has really peaked in the last few days – yesterday it was over 100! – so the water felt great.
Again, for more photos, click here.
Our parish’s senior priest, Fr Alexei, loves organizing outings for the parish. On Tuesday, he took about 75 of us to visit the Monastery of St Arsenios the Cappadocian in Halkidiki. Afterwards, we then went to the tiny
We left Panorama in two coach buses around 8 AM and headed first to the men’s monastery, which was founded in 1986 by Elder Paisios (+1994). When we got on the bus, Fr Alexei said a short prayer for our trip and we all sang several apolytikia – for Pentecost, St George (our parish), and St Demetrios (
When we arrived at the monastery, we headed first to the church, where Fr Alexei again led a short 10-minute prayer service. Again, we sang several apolytikia, including the one for St Arsenios. I took quite a bit of video inside the church, both of our little service and of the inside of the church generally. I particularly tried to capture some of the unique iconography and the impressive collection of relics at the front of the church (including, notably, St Ignatios the God-Bearer). There wasn’t much light in there, so I hope the video came out decently – see below.
I also took some photos. The top one includes Pelagia as we walked through the entrance of the monastery. The second one is of Fr Gregory, a priest-monk who serves in a village near Panorama, in the middle of the monastery’s courtyard. The third is of Pelagia near a plant she liked very much – she’s always on the prowl for interesting plants, and monasteries here always have such beautiful and well-maintained gardens. The final photo is of Pelagia walking from a viewing area across the courtyard toward the main church.
All the photos from the day are located here.
After we looked around, we all went down to the monastery’s bookstore, which was quite large. I found two books in English which I had never seen before. One was a children’s book about St Zoticus, Guardian of Orphans. The second was the story of an elderly woman named Tarso, who many say was a contemporary Fool for Christ. The monastery also had some of their own chant recordings which I had never seen anywhere else before.
I always think it would be nice to collect these kinds of things on our trips and somehow distribute them to the bookstores of Orthodox parishes back in the
After we left the monastery, we then drove on toward Ouranoupoli, the traditional departure point for the
Here’s the video from the day. It’s about 8 and a half minutes long. The first half is from inside the monastery, and the second half is from our return bus trip.
Fr Alexei started doing some traditional Greek (actually Pontian) dancing on the bus and he was looking for people to dance with him. An elderly woman danced with him for awhile as I got out the camera. You’ll see that he then came and got the two of to dance with him (unfortunately – or fortunately – I couldn’t take any video of us dancing). After that, the video ends with him leading a sing-along!
Sorry for the lack of activity on the blog! I hope my three faithful readers haven’t given up on me! ( :
Since Greek school finished, both Pelagia and I have been working a lot. Pelagia keeps getting more and more work – mainly painting, but earlier this week I helped her put in some laminate flooring.
She is an extremely hard worker and does excellent work, so her name keeps spreading by word-of-mouth. She’s now even got a couple job offers to work on summer homes in Halkidiki. Of course, that just underscores a big problem – lack of a car. It’s to the point now where she could get a lot more work – and charge more – if we had a car. But of course fronting the money for even a used car is difficult for us. If anyone out there wants to donate some funds toward this end, we’d REALLY appreciate it! ( :
Meanwhile, apart from occasionally helping Pelagia, I’m working on some translations for Fr.
Anyway, this post is about our big mousmala tree in the backyard. Mousmala is a type of sweet fruit which I had never seen before coming here. Apparently, it is called loquat in English, and it’s a type of quince (if either of those terms helps at all – they didn’t for me!). I guess the closest thing I could compare it to would be a plum.
Well, we have so many right now that they’re just falling off the tree. So the other day Pelagia climbed up in the tree (see the top picture – she’s in the tree, along with our cat Mo, although you can’t really make them out), and harvested two buckets full of them. We then made 7 jars of jam from it – and it’s even pretty good!
Stay tuned to the blog. Yesterday, Tuesday, we went on a field trip with our parish here in Panorama, and I have lots of photos – and a video – that I’m working on posting. Also, we’re taking a trip to
My parents were supposed to be visiting right now, and they were taking us to
Well, the results are in – I passed! I got a 7, which probably won’t mean much to most of you. It’s based on a scale of 1-10, with 5 as passing. My goal all year had been simply to get a 5, which many of us language-challenged Americans struggle to get. So I was quite happy with a 7. In fact, my teacher told me that I missed getting an 8 by a single point. Oh well!
Since the exam, what’s been happening? Well, John Karcher returned from two months away in
Last night, I went downtown to attend a lecture by Fr. Spyridon (our confessor and the confessor for most of the Americans here) at Panagia Ahiropiitou. There, we ran into Fr. John Bethancourt (of the Antiochian parish in
Meanwhile, this week, Pelagia and I embarked on a major project of repainting the kitchen and all our doors and doorframes. It’s almost done – we’re hoping we’ll finish tomorrow. Maybe I’ll post some before & after photos again.
On Monday, Pelagia starts on a painting job down in Harilaou which should take about 4 days.
As for me, I will now start on my first paid translation work! Fr.
I will be translating the following three:
The Church of
Metropolitan NATHANAEL of
The Church of
Archpriest Valentin Asmus, Professor, Theological School of Moscow
The Problem of Uniatism in
Ivan Diatsenko, Professor, Ecclesiastical School “The Ladder”, Dviepropetrovsk
