Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece

OrthodoxyOrDeath · Post by **OrthodoxyOrDeath** » Sun 9 January 2005 6:28 pm

Can people visit the Esphigmenou Monastery? Or would I have to bust out my Zodiac and my marine corps ninja stealth to visit?

lol - that depends on what mood Bartholomew is in.

You can visit any time, but you cannot tell the Athos "Authority" that you are planning to visit Esphigmenou. It is helpful if you have a Greek last name on your passport and/or a university ID.

There is a very good instruction on visiting Mt. Athos at this link...
http://www.monachos.net/monasticism/ath ... thos.shtml

I've read through it and the only thing it left out, at least I didn't see it, is that you really only need to let them know no less than a week before you go, more is better of course. It would also be helpful if the article had some instruction on how to travel from Athens to Thessoloniki, and then to Ouranoupoli, as this is a significant (and in some ways the worst) part of the journey.

It would also be very very helpful to know how to and what to pack.

Nektarios · Post by **Nektarios** » Sun 9 January 2005 6:42 pm

Dang I think Ill just get out my little rubber beach assault boat a set of my woodland camies and my black wet suit and just hit the beach at night and visit. Seem alot easier then to have to go through all that, because I thought the Greek Police patrol the monastery so that they dont get visitors?

OrthodoxyOrDeath · Post by **OrthodoxyOrDeath** » Sun 9 January 2005 6:47 pm

Well, if you do a beach assault, you'll have to write a "how to" for monochos.net.

Nektarios · Post by **Nektarios** » Sun 9 January 2005 6:52 pm

hahah.

"How to beach assualt the Holy Monastery of Esphigmenou, and avoid the Greek Police" by Nektarios Harrison

Justin Kissel · Post by **Justin Kissel** » Sun 9 January 2005 8:47 pm

Anastasios,

I have said before that, if I ever were to leave ROCOR, I would join the Chrysostom II GOC, and I still mean that. I just want to stress that so this post doesn't sound like an attack--I have a sincere respect for them. The thing that bums me out, I guess, is that Archbp. Chrysostomos II said that they only have 180 parishes. If they had 500,000 people, they would be averaging 2778 people per church. Even at 200,000, they would be averaging 1,111 people per church. Now how many GOC Churches (total) have a thousand people attending on Sunday morning? I guess, I just want to see our evangelical faith spread... I know it's dumb to get caught on numbers.

Anastasios · Post by **Anastasios** » Sun 9 January 2005 8:53 pm

Justin Kissel wrote:
Anastasios,

I have said before that, if I ever were to leave ROCOR, I would join the Chrysostom II GOC, and I still mean that. I just want to stress that so this post doesn't sound like an attack--I have a sincere respect for them. The thing that bums me out, I guess, is that Archbp. Chrysostomos II said that they only have 180 parishes. If they had 500,000 people, they would be averaging 2778 people per church. Even at 200,000, they would be averaging 1,111 people per church. Now how many GOC Churches (total) have a thousand people attending on Sunday morning? I guess, I just want to see our evangelical faith spread... I know it's dumb to get caught on numbers.

Actually, Justin, they probably do have 2000 people per parish. In any given Orthodox Church, I have found that only 10% of the people actually go to Church on any given Sunday For instance, the Antiochians have 500,000 members but 48,000 regular communicants. The OCA has 1,000,000 members but only 20,000 regular communicants!

Nektarios · Post by **Nektarios** » Sun 9 January 2005 10:47 pm

Im thinking about joining the GOC of Chrysostom II