Views from Mount Athos

Searching for forgotten Christian knowledge of man among the monks of Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain of Northern Greece... “Jesus said: ‘Let him who seeks not cease seeking until he finds, and when he finds, he will be troubled, and when he has been troubled he will marvel, and he will reign over the All.’” (Gospel According to Thomas)

DEDICATION: Spiritual men seek among the centuries-old forests of Athos for ten or a dozen holy men who are sanctified to replace a similar number in the hidden corners of Athos’ forests and mountains. When these secret-saints die, it is said, ten or twelve new saints are formed, although at any time, only two of them become publicly known.  I was blessed to meet one of them on a number of occasions, sometimes being able to find a translator of his Greek, sometimes being forced to learn through the language of love without detailed interpretation. Both ways, it seemed to me that I learned then ‘by heart’, not just in words, but in new understanding. - Robin Amis

BACK COVER: Exploring the Holy Mountain is exploring oneself... Over the past several decades there have been numerous accounts written by travelers and pilgrims to Mount Athos in Northern Greece. Since its beginnings as a monastic republic before the 10th century AD, this narrow peninsula which protrudes for 50 kilometers into the Aegean Sea has captured the imagination of hundreds of writers, scholars, and pilgrims. To this day, there is a constant stream of visitors to its monasteries, which allow their doors to open to a limited number of visitors each day in order to preserve their time-honored way of life, and to protect it from tourism as well as curiosity-seekers looking for the new or exotic in their travels.

Robin Amis began writing this book in the early ‘80’s, when he first started visiting the Mountain regularly – visits which now total over 60. His first impressions of what he found there are encapsulated in this account of keenly observed descriptions of landscape and monasteries interspersed with deeply learned ‘lessons’ – truths brought home to the author by circumstances which so often evoked an inner response.

It is these revelations which tie the book together – and as in all true revelations, they do not follow a logical sequential pattern – they come ‘out of the blue’, surfacing when another relevant memory calls them up into consciousness out of the depth of our being. This book, then, could really be called an ‘inner journey’, for which external details provide a kind of scaffolding on which to hang the various insights that keep on emerging all the way from the beginning of the book to its end.

Views From Mount Athos, may be regarded as a 'travel book' - but it is also a many-layered journey - spiritual, philosophical, and psychological as much as physical.  As Robin walks the narrow paths of the mountain from monastery to monastery, he finds himself increasingly detached from the noisy world of the West and travels the mountain tracks within himself. Among his guides on this journey was the blessed Elder Paisios (now Saint Paisios), from whom he learned the ‘wisdom of the heart’. 

Though published near the end of his life, this book is actually his first; the manuscript lay forgotten for over twenty years while he developed his understanding of spiritual life for lay people in the modern world, expounded notably in his A Different Christianity: Early Christian Esotericism and Modern Thought (Praxis Institute Press, 2003).

 

Robin Amis was a British author, poet, publisher, editor and translator. Although he had studied a wide range of spiritual traditions, including Kabbalah, the Fourth Way and Hindu teachings, it was his conversion to the Eastern Orthodox Church and his relationship with Mount Athos, the ancient monastic republic in Greece, that ultimately defined his life and work. Over a thirty-year period, between 1982 and 2013, he made more than 60 visits to Mount Athos, where he was recognised as a "synergatis", a fellow worker and equal of the monks. Amis documented the results of his research in A Different Christianity: Early Christian Esotericism and Modern Thought (SUNY 1995, Praxis 2003), and recounted his experience on the Holy Mountain in Views from Mount Athos (Praxis 2014). As founder of Praxis Institute Press, he translated, edited and published the three volume English language edition of Gnosis by Boris Mouravieff as well as books on Hesychasm and the spiritual tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. He was married to the American artist Lillian Delevoryas and in the last years of his life lived in Bristol, England. In the early 1960s Amis joined the Study Society in London, which was led by one of P. D. Ouspensky's former students, Francis Roles. By the late 1960s, Amis was leading study groups in various parts of England, including Bristol, Birmingham, Sussex and Gloucestershire. In 1979, Amis took a group of his students to meet with Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church. This meeting, in turn, led to Amis' interest in Orthodoxy and the ancient monastic tradition that had been preserved on Mount Athos. Amis first visited Athos in 1982 and by chance met with Gerald Palmer, a former student of Ouspensky who had converted to Orthodoxy in 1950. Palmer's spiritual teacher on Athos was Father Nikon who encouraged Palmer to acquire, translate and publish the Philokalia, the compendium of teachings of the Church Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church. This translation was started by Gerald Palmer and E. Kadloubovsky, and continued by Palmer, Kallistos Ware and Philip Sherrard. It was begun at a time when very few Orthodox books were available in the English language. Amis' initial visits to Mount Athos in turn led to his own conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy in 1983. Between 1987 and 1993, Amis and a small team that included Lillian Amis, Sergei Kadleigh and his wife Leslie, translated, edited and published the three volume work, Gnosis, A Study and Commentary on the Esoteric Tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy by Boris Mouravieff. Originally published in France between 1960 and 1963 Gnosis was based on the course entitled "An Introduction to esoteric philosophy according to the esoteric tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy" that Mouravieff had taught at the University of Geneva. In his later years Amis concentrated on writing, lecturing and teaching. He continued to make regular bi-annual visits to Mount Athos, establishing a close relationship with Osiou Gregoriou monastery, its Abbot, Archimandrite George Kapsanis, and the brotherhood of monks there. During those visits, Amis placed himself under obedience with an elder, Saint Paisios of Mount Athos. At one of these meetings St. Paisios told him: "You English have served man very well with your intellect, giving him many things he needs, the solutions to many problems that have made life easier for everyone. Now you should do another work - to understand and tell the world of the inner truth, the truth of the heart as well". In many ways this instruction defined the latter part of Amis's life, which he devoted to this task. He formed Praxis Research Institute (www.praxisresearch.net) and working with a small number of associates and students around the world through video conferencing he developed his ideas for bringing Hesychasm to spiritual seekers who have to live and work in the world. Amis died in Bristol, England, aged 82 on 13 June 2014.