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Mount Athos: No Women Allowed!
| Article
# : |
17523 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1990 |
1,884 Words |
| Author
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Nino Lo Bello
Nino Lo Bello is an American writer based in Vienna. |
Next to military goods and petroleum products, the biggest business in the world is tourism - but you'd never suspect it in the Holy Athonite Republic. The monastic communities of Mount Athos, occupied by nine hundred monks, are a tourist attraction that does not encourage tourism. Indeed, half of the potential visitors are automatically barred by a law that goes back to the year A.D. 1060 and is strictly enforced.
The law says: No Women Allowed!
For Miss, Ms., or Mrs. Tourist, who may be intrigued by a place like the Holy Mountain, the only way to see it - sans fuss or botheration - is through binoculars, from a rented motor launch or organized Aegean Sea junket from Piraeus. Travel-wise, the place is a novelty supreme, whether you see it from afar bobbing the waves or on land. But it is no place to try to sneak in on a lark. Women who have been caught sneaking in receive a standard punishment of six to sixteen lashes and immediate expulsion.
But if you are of the male persuasion and are willing to put up with a lot of inconvenience, Mount Athos will let you come in for a look-see. But you can't bring along a wife, or girl friend, or mistress, or even a pet dog, cat, or parakeet that happens to be female. She is a no no, a nix, forbidden, verboten. That is the most rigid of the rules and regulations kept by the monks of Mount Athos. This unique country, the only true theocracy in the world - and also the only monastic state in Europe - remains untouched by the presence of members of the opposite sex.
With a status somewhat akin to that
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