The ‘Garden of the Virgin Mary’ meets the Twenty-First Century: the Challenge of Technology on Mount Athos

Abstract

This article focuses on recent developments on Mount Athos in Greece. This centuries-old monastic community has been challenged for at least five decades by various influences from ‘the world’, meaning outside Athos. These include cultural shifts in Greece and Europe, demographic processes, and political and economic developments. Last but not least, Athos is challenged by modern technology, which has gradually been introduced to monastic communities there. This article concentrates in particular on this last aspect of modernisation. Since the beginning of monasticism monks have introduced many different technological inventions to their communities. This was also true on Athos: the first monastery used a mechanical kneading device driven by bullocks and had a stone-paved street, and both were criticised by hermits living on Athos at the time as going against the monastic principles of silence, meditation and hard physical work. The technological developments since the beginning of the 1990s have also been seen as challenging these rules. Nonetheless, computers, cellphones and solar power stations are being introduced to monastic communities on Athos. This paper describes this modernisation process and the reasons for it and examines discourse on the subject among monks, revealing various attitudes in different monastic communities. Finally, it addresses the more general question of the attitude of Orthodox Christianity towards modernity.