Zacharias Papantoniou was born on February 2, 1877 in Karpenissi. At the age of thirteen, his family moved to Athens where he finished high school. At the age of sixteen he started to write for the "Acropolis" newspaper. Afterwards he worked as a political columnist, chronographer and author of artistic articles, collaborating with newspapers "Script", "Asty", "Efimerida ton Syzitiseon", "Chronos", "Tachydromos" and "Elefthero Vima". In 1911 he quits journalism and decides to pursue Public Administration. He is appointed Prefect of Zakynthos and later assumes the Prefecture of Cyclades, Messinia and Laconia. In 1918 he became Director of the National Gallery and subsequently Chairman of its Artistic Board, a position he held until his death. Later, in 1922 Zacharias Papantoniou was appointed professor of "Aesthetics and Art History" at the Technical School of Fine Arts until 1938, the year he was elected a member of the Academy of Athens. His work "Mount Athos" was published in 1934 and describes the author's journey to the monasteries of Athos in 1923 as part of his duties as Director of the National Gallery. There are three themes that the author is concerned with: art, nature and mysticism.

Aghion Oros

The word "monastery" brings to us, the Orthodox, a certain architectural image: a large square of united cells, and in the middle of the courtyard, a church. If we add to these the monastery's fundamental motifs, the wooden balconies on the outside of the cells, the bows and the cypress, we have the m o n a s t e r y, the typical objective image, the romantic silhouette, in the minds of Greeks.

But the new figures that time can shape upon this fundamental type of the monastery, the richness that the style can attain, can be seen in Vatopedi. In this case, the time played with imagination. Adding according to the needs, a whole city was built where nothing is heavy, inharmonious, hasty or alien.

Chimneys, balconies, towers, chapels, bell towers, loggia, pavings, columns, recess their irregular shapes into a general harmony, in the so-called Athonian style.

The time has its own aesthetics. And imposes it. These shapes help each other so much! It is impressive how we find unity in so many forms! How comfortable, in the vast courtyard, rises this dense forest of buildings and how all of a sudden it comes to life when, from the height of the ancient bell tower, the melodious bell calls the monks to prayer!

It's dusk. One by one the monks enter the Catholic, which stands there in its deep red color in the courtyard. The dense monastic city was awakened from the midday dorm.

It's evening prayer. The old ones appear first. They are slow to there, so they start early. Then you can hear the sound of the fast and the solid pace of the younger. Their youth can be seen beneath their vestments. Some of them are restless serpentines, some others have are tall and slim, resembling the stylus of a Byzantine dome. Their costume is neat. The vestment is brand new. The Epitrachelion, flawless. The protocol is strict at Vatopadi.

As I entered the Cathedral and saw their black shadows filling the inside of the temple hidden in the pews, looking like built-in to them, I hesitated to take the place I was given in a pew.

They performed the evening prayer in soberness just as a good craftsman does. This made me think that no layman had place there.

I searched for a place to seat. All the corners were gripped. All in the dark filled with monks. I could hardly find a distant pew to follow this ritual rigor. The monks are placed, as always, in the order of hierarchy and value. No errors are allowed in the protocol.

Being lulled all night by the sea, I woke up after a sleepy night and found myself alone in the huge building. The whole convent had emptied! Both foreigners and monks were attending the Liturgy.

I hurried to go down to attend a small part of the liturgy, setting my ear by the door.

Endless monastic types followed after the liturgy. The companion would go from the temple to the Refectory. The long waited time had come that fasting would end. Wax-looking faces in the black color of the scouts and vestments, hungry, exhausted, tempted, victims of the fasting, dragging slowly across the Athos, would now go to the Refectory to suck the hot fish soup was waiting them.

Dressed in the hierarchical vestment and the Epitrachelion, holding the silver crutch in his hand, the Abbot - just a monk called from another monastery to perform the rite and, according to custom, receives bishop's honor this day - was led to his place. He was followed by a tribute of praise by the chanters, the staff and the guests of his election. They all walk slowly while the pray of the day is chanted.

Slowly, the multitude of pale ascetics, the monks and the laymen is sited around the marble tables that have stood for centuries in the large Refectory and find in front of them the soup and the fish, cooked in five ways - because meat is not allowed.

All of them eat in silence to hear the monk who recites the fathers' speeches. Yellow-skinned and pale, he picks up the physical forces left on him and reads endless pages, the fasting monk with his pitched voice that bears pain and triumph at the same time.

In the middle of the meal, the abbot rises from his central position, drinks his wine and wishes goodness to all.

Once they were finished, the servant monk approached the abbot and took from his hand a glass of wine and some leftovers from the table. Then the Kanonarches came and took from the abbot a glass and a plate of food. He will keep these two utensils, according to custom. It's his payment.

The semandron is much older than the bell. It was portable, hunging on monastery towers that were built for this purpose.

This ancient tradition of semandron is maintained by the monasteries of Athos. The times of liturgies are indicated by the iron-made, and most commonly by the the wooden semandron. This latter sound is one of the most unmusical that can be heard.

But even if the wood has no sound, it is full of affection for man's finer sense. It would be bad for a stranger if they used bells for this purpose.

The wood signifies the evening prayer, rectums and liturgies. It is strange not only to hear it, but also to see it, long as a paddle, in the hands of the monk who is pounding it walking beneath the cells specially dressed for this service […] his formal vestment, the Epitrachelion.

At the heights of Karyes we see the top of Athos picking up to the sky piercing the clouds like a stone lance guarding mysticism as it begins from its feet and spreads around with emerald softness the whole of the emerald Athos of the monasteries.

Those soft waves of earth, bearing no anomaly, no stone and no bare, lower down their deepest forested gorges. A spotless blue sea bathes this huge emerald.

Far in the horizon, the blue shades - Thassos, Imbros, Lemnos.

We are heading towards Vatopedi. The same stuffy plantation lies everywhere. All covered. No gloom. No field. No plain. Trees and shrubs braided, distressed, choked, are seeking some space to grow. Only the chestnut trees, thin columns, escape and play with their wide leaves freely in the air and in the sun, knitting the bows under which we pass. Every so often looms before us and one of Athos' innumerable forested gorges. Rapid and deep, they descend destroying the chestnut trees, oaks, beeches, alders and plane trees.

Along the road we find faucets dripping water for the hikers. The fountain is always large, with crosses, dates and tassels. The water is like tears.

The hermit wets his tongue as he passes by. He counts the few moments that he is allowed to rest in this huge, dark arcade of leaves.

Then, as he sees that the good times are getting more - a luxury - he re-loads the forty kilos of his shopping bag, and with his shoes kicked off, he starts again. Each faucet will rest one of these black shades. They never fall asleep. There's no time to care for their bodies.

The time is rolling, the road is long, and they must leave immediately. They gather their bones and, saluting the passer-by with an erect head movement, they dissappear.