In Greece, a Byzantine Monastery with a Mission for Today
By Marni Patterson
The Simonos Petras Monastery sits on a sheer cliff on Mt. Athos, 755 feet above the Aegean Sea. Its seven stories of Byzantine architecture are imposing even from the deck of a boat 500 yards offshore.
This is the only way most visitors see the Simonos Petras Monastery and 19 other monasteries on the Athos Peninsula. Thousands of visitors each year take a three-hour cruise or private boat tour with companies like Athos Sea Cruises to view them.
Osios Simon, a hermit living in a nearby cave, founded the monastery in 1257. As the story goes, on Christmas night, he saw a flickering light. The third time the light appeared, the Virgin Mary said, “Build me a monastery where the light is showing, and the name of that monastery shall be ‘The New Bethlehem’.”…
Link: https://fwtmagazine.com/greece-holy-monastery-of-the-annunciation
