THE LAST MONK OF THE STROFADES

Παρουσίαση

The Strofades: two small, flat, windswept islands out of the Ionian Sea, known to the ancient Greeks as the home of the terrible Harpies, and to most modern Greeks simply unknown. On the larger of the two islets, Stamfani, stands a massive fortified Monastery, founded as early as the thirteenth century, for centuries a refugee for honest seafarers and a target for pirates and Turkish raiders. In its heyday, this imposing compound was home to some forty farmer-monks, who kept the entire island under cultivation; by 1976, it was home to just one, Father Gregory Kladis, who alone tended the Monastery until 2014. Today the Monastery - badly damaged by an earthquake in 1977 - lies empty and in danger of ruin.
This book is intended to tell the world about the Holy Monastery at Strofades, and encourage its presentation. At its core are the words of the last monk himself, Father Gregory, who guides the reader through his historic Monastery - its chapels, Refectory, mills, bakehouse, as depicted in Robert McCabe's superb photographs. The testimonies of the boat-man who brought Father Gregory his supplies, as well as the lighthouse keeper who was once his only companion on the island, lend texture and context - as do essays on the history, geology, and architecture of the Strofades, and architectural drawings that show the Monastery's phases of construction.
Nobody who peruses this volume - the result of a yearslong collaboration between more than a dozen researchers and fields of the Strofades - will be able to forget the islands' last monk, or be unmoved by the plight of his Monastery.
(From the publisher)

Περιεχόμενα

Preface
Contributors
The Strophades
The Strophades Monastery: History and outlook
Dramatis personae
The lay of the land
Strofades: A miracle in the middle of nowhere
The Holy Monastery of Strofades: A unique structure in the Orthodox World
Monasticism as military service. The Monastery's manuscripts
The Strofades Monastery: A historiographic omission
Restoration prospects: "In conversation" with the monument
Eighteen wells on a remote, little island: Where do the island springs originate from?
Endangered flora and fauna
The isolated keepers of a historic lighthouse
The Strofades Monastery: Architecture and construction history
Postscript
Acknowledgments
List of references and sources