Fotis Kontoglou

He was born in Ayvalık of Asia Minor, on November 8, 1895. He finished high school and came to Athens for his studies at "Polytechneion", the Technical University. He lived in Paris for five years, where he worked as an illustrator for books and magazines. In 1919 he returned to Ayvalık and founded the "New People" Spiritual Association with the participation of Elias Venezis and Stratis Dukas. He was appointed to the "Parthenagogeion" (Girls' School) where he teaches French and History of Arts. He published his book "Pedro Cazas" and in 1922 after the catastrophe of Asia Minor he came to Athens.
He went to Mount Athos for the first time in 1923 and stayed there for several months. During that period, his contact with Byzantine art will be a milestone in his work and life. He has passionately supported the need for the creation of a Greek art that draws from Byzantine and post-Byzantine art.
During his first visit to the Athonian state, he writes:
"...I didn't expect to find such perfect art in the monastery churches. From what I had read about Byzantine art I had the idea that this art was worth less attention than that of the Italian Renaissance. In Athos's paintings one can find the most rare perfection. As far as I can see, it is very rare to find works with such artistic wisdom and so intense rhythm".

Summertime in Athos
"Nea Estia" Magazine, Volume 875, Athens 1963

I went to Aghion Oros many times. The first time I stayed for two months and met a lot of fathers and laymen, because there are many people there, carriers, servants and porters loading the ships.

What fascinated me the most, was the "Arsanas", that is, the place they keep the boats and the fishing gear.

I left my bear grow, I forgot everyting and I became a fisherman. I ate, drank, worked, slept with the fishermen who were all monks, most of them Bougainans, that is, from Istanbul.


What a carefree life I lived there!


The "Arsanas" was a long house built above the sea in a peat, that had a roof with black tiles all along. In front of it the sea waves were smashing when the wind was blowing from the north, carrying along myrrh, holm-trees and lush bushes on the rocks.


The "Arsanas" had five caverns draped in the front and a log that was lying on a beam. There was where we were sleeping.

Beneath there were some low-lying arches where they were storing the boats. The nets were hanged over the handles of the loggias.

While we were sleeping, we heard the sea beneath the arches, rolling over and over the pebbles and lulling us. Old icons were hanging in the Arsanas and an always-burning candle.



I grabbed my cane and walked to the cottages. A monk came with me, tall and mighty, although he was the monastery's baker. The path crosses some beautiful spots, reaching some god-made vultures, looking south towards the open sea. Aabove your head lies mount Athos. In one spot you can see the foot of the mountain standing steeply above the sea, and seems as it was cut with a knife and that part of the mountain fell into the sea. Indeed, as as the monks told me, this part of the mountain was cut one day in 1900, crashed into the sea and smashed onto the houses killing half a dozen monks. This earthquake shook the whole of Macedonia.



I stayed in these cottages for a longer time than the other monasteries. I was part of the monks family, sitting with them in their gatherings to discuss the brotherhod issues. My name appeared in the founders' list, mentioned along with the names of my spouse and children.


I developed a close friendship with Father Sidorro, who hosted me in his cell. I wrote a lot for him elsewhere. He was thirty-five years old by then, and he had a testy monk Barba-Charalabos from Castelorizo, a seventy-year-old hobbit of the sea, who worked as a seaman traveling up to the yellow river of China.

One day came a man in the cottages, a monk from a fisherman's house that was between Cavo-Smerna and our cottages, and father Isidoros hosted him. He was called Neilos, and it was coming from Mytilene.

As I was leaving, he invited me to his cell. Neilos and his companion had two trawl-boats and two small boats.

There were seven or eight people, five older and two or three young monks. All of them with sun-burned skins, like negros. Father Neilos was bearing such calmness and simplicity that made you love and respect him. He spoke little, and had always a smile at his face, with thick lips and a long and dense beard, growing beneath his eyes and covering his cheeks. His scoops made him look as a Babylonian. Barefoot, as also all of them, he was wearing a dark shirt and oriental breeches up to his knees.

They would turn on the fish, take the fish out and pick a few big ones to eat and some others for salting, while they would leave the rest in a pile to salt them later.

Of the big fish, they salted many groupers, to preserve for the winter period. Of the small fish, they salted picarels and sardines within barrels and sent them to Salonica. They sat cross-legged around the pile and salted the fish. The whole house smelled heavily of the fish, upsetting my stomach. But gradually I got used to the smell and did not bother me at all. I thought that this was how Christ himself and the apostles would smell. The men and everything around smelled fish. Even within the church you could feel that smell. At times when the others were out fishing, we chatted with Father Neilos about religion, his home history, the storms that he went through, the beasts of the sea that he came across, the ships that he saw sinking at this place, and many other issues. Another time, as he was caulking a boat on the shore, he chanted with his sweet voice, pretending to be the right chant voice and so I was the left voice.

We were chanting the Katavasias of Metamorphosis (as it was these days in Augist) «Χοροὶ Ἰσραὴλ ἀήκμοις ποσί, πόντον ἐρυθρὸν καὶ ὑγρὸν βυθὸν διελάσαντες», the Pasapnoaria of doxastikon «Παρέλαβεν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸν Πέτρον καὶ Ἰάκωβον καἰ Ἰωάννην», and then, in slow rhytm, the «Ἐν τῷ φωτὶ ταῆς δόξης τοῦ προσώπου σου, Κύριε, πορευόμεθα εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα». At the end, we always closing with «Εὐλογητὸς εἶ, Χριστὲ ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν, ὁ πανσόφους τοὺς ἁλιεῖς ἀναδείξας, καταπέμψας αὐτοῖς τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, καὶ δι' αὐτῶν τὴν οἰκουμένην σαγηνεύσας, φιλάνθρωπε, δόξα σοι».


I can't describe the excitement and hearted feeling as I heard father Neilos, barefoot, with his curved breech and the seaweed stuck above his bare feet, chanting this ancient melody with iambic lyrics, while the old Greek waves were ploping at a distance and the wind was blowing over the rocks and trees.



But I was feeling the deepest and most peculiar emotion on Sundays and other festive days, when father Neilos, was transformed from a fisherman to the priest of God, he who in the normal days was salting the fish, mending the boats and the sail cloths and managing the anchorages with his companions

During the Liturgy he was transformed to a patriarchate, with his Epitrachelion and his gold Phelonion, his Epimanikia, and Epigonation, praying in secrecy in front of the Altar Table, dressed in the glory of priesthood.

What a wonderful and at the same time horrible mysteries our humble Orthodoxy possesses! My heart was truly tearing from holly happiness and devoutness when father Neilos was blessing the table as we were sitting down to eat, with his rough fingers, while all the other fishermen were sitting around tiered, forgotten from the world within that sink. And father Neilos was praying with his humble voice «Χριστὲ ὁ Θεός, εὐλόγησαν τὴν βρῶσιν καὶ τὴν πόσιν τῶν δούλων σου, ὅτὶ ἅγιος εἶ πάντοτε νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων», under the shadow of the boat's bow and the salty spray of the sea water."