Monastic Saints

By Guy Freeland* Pilgrimage to Skellig Michael From my perch along the gunwale of a fishing boat I look out across a gently heaving Atlantic Ocean towards the soaring needle-sharp pinnacles of two rocks on the very Western limits of Europe: Skellig Michael and Small Skellig. Two red sandstone and slate islets 12km off a small island (Valentia), off a …

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-urZ8ICy8Mk] Prologue Throughout Christian history, many places have arisen to spiritual prominence due to either their legacy of martyrdom or monasticism. Naturally within peaceful times where there were few people being martyred for the Faith, monasticism assumed a greater role within Christian witness, and within the era of the undivided Christian ecumene, numerous monastic centres became centres of prayer, …

Introduction Born in Arta[1] ca. 1470, Michael Trivolis[2] came from a well-to-do family from the Peloponnese who also gave birth to the Patriarch Saint Calistus I. In his early youth he left for Italy where he completed his studies at Florence after which he took a keen interest in religion and spiritual renewal. In 1507 he became a monk at …

SAINT  KOSMAS AITOLOS Seventeen centuries after St. Paul journeyed across Greece, a solitary man of God travelled the same country from border to border, sea to sea, and island to island in a magnificent religious spirit, which strengthened the fires of Christianity and the flickering hopes of a nation, that was straining under the yoke of Turkish occupation after nearly …