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Accepted Paper:
Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates the personal journey of Christian Orthodox monks on their way from the worldly world, via a monastery, to heaven, in order to illustrate the importance of movement in the spiritual and historical reproduction of the brotherhoods.
Paper long abstract:
The paper compares the contrasting journeys of the monks of the rival neighbouring monasteries of Vatopaidi and Esfigmenou, in their transition from secular to monastic life on Mount Athos, an autonomous, Christian Orthodox monastic republic of twenty monasteries with only male monks, situated in northern Greece. In the absence of biological forms of reproduction, the paper will highlight the importance of movement in the spiritual reproduction of the brotherhoods. Using material taken from the personal histories of monks as narrated to me during my fieldwork on Athos, the paper will map both the contrsting geographic and the esoteric journeys the monks of each brotherhood took on their way to their respective monasteries. This journey is conceived as being both geographic, referring to the movement of men from the 'worldly world' (k/cosmos) into Athos to populate the monasteries, and esoteric, regarding the internal transformation of each man into a monk through the cleansing process of his ordeal, which culminates with their tie of tonsure. The personal history and motivations of each monk plays an active part in the history and motivations of his respective 'spiritual family' (pneumatiki oikogeneia) formed on the way to a monastery. The paper investigates the paradox of monastic life as manifested in the interdependence of the spiritual to the material world it morally denounces, in order to illustrate how the esoteric transformation of each monk, incorporated within ideas of the monastic self, complements the historical movement and changes that take place inside the monasteries, and in relation to a profane 'world' (k/cosmos) out there.
Anthropologies of (in)visible cultures and selves
Session 1