An exhibit "Mount Athos the Ark of Orthodoxy" was sponsored at Saint Demetrios during Great Lent, 2024. It was prepared by the Mount Athos Foundation of America and the Mount Athos Center of Thessaloniki and was brought to us by MIchael Thompson. The exhibit features one panel for each of the twenty monasteries on Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain plus additional panels depicting life on the Holy Mountain.  Additionally the exhibit narrates the Holy Mountain's history, institutions, art, architecture, natural environment and spiritual life.

 

The exhibition’s panels and accompanying book feature dramatic photography taken at each of the monasteries, and narratives explaining their vast and impressive histories. Monasteries such as Great Lavra, Vatopedi, Iveron, Zographou, Xenophontos, and Esphigmenou have histories dating back over 1,000 years. Books are still available through the St. Demetrios Bookstore.

 

Spiritually, Mount Athos is a community of men dedicated to the uninterrupted worship of God through ascetical practice, where the daily spiritual and material life of the monks unfolds with the liturgical life at its epicenter. Writers from Byzantine times to today have praised both the natural beauty of the location and the virtuous life of the ascetics, viewing it as the ideal place for asceticism, as an ideal realm of God on Earth.