FIRST PILGRIMAGE TO HOLY MOUNT ATHOS

Madness is gripping humanity. To keep our sanity we join Fotis Parakatselakis on his first, four day pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain, also known as Athos, or the garden of the All Holy Mother of God,  the autonomous community of monks and monasteries on the easternmost of the three peninsulas of Halkidiki in the northern Aegean Sea. Women and motor cars are not allowed and permission to film is scarce. English auto subtitles available. I will talk you through it, as the images are really speaking for themselves. It is not a professionally shot video, which only adds to its private and spiritual character. It is "a journey that is not only recorded by the camera, but also with the soul" and is dedicated to those who are far away and could not come and to the women who follow, but could not go. 

Jan. 29, 2026 Strata: Πρώτη Φορά στο Άγιον Όρος – Από το Βατοπαίδι ως την Αγία Άννα. (First Time on Mount Athos - From Vatopaidi to Agia Anna).

We join Fotis just before dawn in early January, with temperatures close to zero degrees centigrade, as he boards the ferry boat 'Agia Anna' that will bring him and his companions to the small harbor of Daphni on the Athos peninsula. 

Fotis feels like a young boy again, as he sets off into the wilds of the mountain, to "exercise the soul".

03:10 Center of Athos, the icon of the Theotokos, 'Axion Esti' 

08:40 Arrival at the cell of Agios Paisios in Panagouda

10:50 Arrival at the cell of Elder Gabriel

11:30 At Monastery Vatopaidi

17:00 Lake Asana

18:55 Celebration of Ta Phota (Epiphany), old calendar

19:40 Voyage from Daphni to Nea Skiti in the north

23:15 Cell of Father Nikodimos at Ag. Georgiou

25:25 Tomb of Ag. Joseph the Hesychast

33:45 Archontariki Agia Anna

35:50 Return to Neo Skiti in time for Vespers for the celebration of Ag. Ioannis Prodromos (John the Baptist)

37:37 Last night at the cell and garden of Father Nikodimos at Ag. Georgiou

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