The priest quickly steps out into the courtyard of the Athenian metropolis and is looking for a policeman. “Only when the last bow down will we close,” he tells him. He informs him that the turn has come to the “big plane tree”. They both know that this is equivalent to at least an hour of waiting. It’s “noon” in the evening. “Although the temple was supposed to close at midnight, the last few days we leave after three in the morning. You cannot drive the world away,” explains a temple volunteer who attended the poetry reading. He is exhausted, but happy. The attendance of believers exceeded all expectations. There is no official data, but it is estimated that more than half a million people bowed to the Aksion Esti icon.

Nectarios Torunidis, a serdar (something like the guardian of Athos during the Turkish occupation), who accompanied the icon, predicted it from the very first days. Back in Karies, he undertook to laminate 5,000 reduced copies of the image, which the monks handed out to the faithful during worship. “They finished in a few hours,” he tells K. He himself is not a monk, but an administrative official. The room in which he stayed on Mount Athos is located next to the temple of Protatus, where this icon is kept. “This is the most important thing in Athos, maybe even in Orthodoxy,” he emphasizes. It depicts the Virgin Mary holding the one-year-old Christ to her right. According to the Church, the Archangel Gabriel appeared in 980 AD. in front of the icon and dictated to the monk the song of Axion Esti. Nektarios daily sees believers coming from all over the world to Mount Athos to worship her. However, on the first day when the icon arrived in Athens with the honors of the head of state, there were many moments when he was touched. “Fortunately, people are holding on. Our faith is strong,” he tells K.

Extensions

He himself stood for hours next to the image, dressed in a Macedonian blue suit and king. When we meet him, he is sitting on a marble terrace in the Metropolis courtyard, wearing black jeans and a sweatshirt. Although not required, most of the day is spent around the temple. He has been in Athens for 13 days and feels ready to return to Athos. “Normally we would have fallen behind by now,” he notes. The attendance of the people was so great that last Sunday in the Metropolis of Elektra, where 20 representatives of the monasteries of the Holy Mountain live, a meeting was held at which the request of the Archdiocese for a two-day extension was accepted.

“If we didn’t have elections, he would have stayed at least another two weeks,” temple volunteers estimate when they take a breather in the yard at some point. It is remembered that on an earlier visit of the icon to Athens – in 1987 on the occasion of the visit of the Ecumenical Patriarch – it was extended four times. Then the icon descended to the capital for the second time. The first was in 1963 to celebrate the millennium of Mount Athos, and the third in 1999 to support (and financially help) the victims of the earthquake.

This fourth trip of the icon to Athens was originally planned for March, but was postponed due to an accident in Tempes. “The Agioreites decided not to go down at all, but the Virgin Mary performed her miracle,” volunteers comment. Certainly pressure from the archdiocese played a role, as well as, perhaps, the strong desire of Athos political commander Athanasios Martinos for the public pilgrimage to take place. However, in the early morning of May 3, the icon set off, accompanied by 30 people. First by boat, then by bus. She sat in the front seats, strapped in and constantly supported by two monks. The idea was to travel to Athens on the road to stop at Tempe, but the government rejected the proposal. So he traveled first class on a charter plane. In Athens, on the first day, twenty monks visited (without an icon) Mr. Mitsotakis at Megaros Maximos, and the next day, Mr. Tsipras at Komundura. They also visited Nikos Dendias and various monasteries in Attica as well as in the islands, accompanied by Mr. Martinos, who covered all the expenses of the mission.

“We Need It”

Watching the line that reached the height of Mitropoleos Street, one could see people of all ages. Understandably, some, most of them, pray while waiting for hours (some up to seven). “We all need a miracle,” Litsa comments. During this time, she is undergoing difficult chemotherapy and, although she feels exhausted, she stood in line for six hours. Vasso Hatzivasiliou, 75, now rarely leaves her home due to a recent health adventure. “But I would go to any part of Greece to bow to her. The Mother of God twice saved me from death. The first time I was a little girl,” she says. Another woman who works at a hotel in the center prays every day for her child, who has serious health problems. Moved, she tells how she saw the Virgin Mary in a dream a few weeks ago asking her to pray on Athos. “But how to do it,” I told her in my dream. As soon as I woke up, I saw on Facebook that the image was going to Athens.

It is estimated that more than half a million people worshiped the most important sacred relic of Mount Athos.

A little further on, 25-year-old Dimitris Koulouris doesn’t know when he will be able to travel to Athos, so this is a possibility. He hopes that the image will give him strength. Evdokia, a young lawyer, notes that she is worried about the comments of her peers who consider faith a shame. But he emphasizes that the Church must also take steps to “bring her teaching closer to the youth and our time.” Alexandra, 25, a saleswoman in Ermou, rarely goes to church, but she went to school one afternoon and saw that she didn’t have long to wait and decided to go in. “I don’t know what to expect from this experience,” he tells K. A couple of tourists from France and one from Korea had no idea what they were waiting for (two hours), but they would keep the laminated icon as a “keychain”. An emigrant from America recalls that many years ago she learned that this particular icon had arrived in Astoria. “In the end, it was a faithful copy. Some wanted to make money on us,” he comments in broken Greek. In line, the vending machine stands out with its characteristic red coloration. He left his bike nearby, closed the app on his mobile phone, and forcibly holds the square red box.

Pilgrimage with…average

Everyone is looking forward to it. It was only on weekends that the tension increased, and for good reason. People who waited for several hours saw that through the side… More And Nectarius-serdar found out about this thanks to the pressure exerted on him by various acquaintances. But he was negative. “You have come to gain strength and the blessings of the Virgin Mary, work a little too,” he told them, urging them to stand in line. Only once does he admit that he missed a friendly older couple. “They came twice and waited for hours, but left because they couldn’t take it anymore. The man has serious health problems, so I gave up on the third try.”

Tears and fainting

Since pilgrims enter the temple every twenty, they are told that in fifteen minutes they will be in front of the icon. Volunteers act in an organized and systematic manner. They mechanically fill bags with extinguished candles. They bring new ones from warehouses. Others have been tasked with not taking selfies or photos at all, though this rule is relaxed late at night. Some of those present at the liturgy are not bothered by live broadcasts via Facebook.

When they finally get to the picture, they have a few seconds. Some get on their knees, others touch it with cotton wool or a piece of cloth soaked in oil, and then carefully store it somewhere. Some burst into tears. Others act as if hypnotized. Most leave a piece of paper with their requests.

Of course, there was danger here. “Four times I caught pickpockets at the crime scene,” comments a volunteer in a midnight well that has formed outside the temple. They discuss a story the old man told them over the weekend: “The tattooed girl was waiting her turn, fell to the floor and screamed foaming at the mouth. How obsessed. He crucified her and led her to the icon, and everything happened there.” They do not mention the word, but it is clear that they consider it a miracle of the Virgin Mary.

Rolled up in line

A Red Cross volunteer who had studied earlier confirmed to “K” that especially on the weekends she had to deal with several episodes of syncope. On Monday evening, a 70-year-old woman lost consciousness just a few minutes before entering the temple. Luckily for her, there was an anesthesiologist, a nurse, and an oral surgeon in line to give her first aid. They insisted that he be taken to the hospital. Her pulse was very low. While waiting for EKAV, some called on her to prostrate, and indeed, supported and with great difficulty, they reached the icon. Despite persistent calls from the police, who saw that she was getting worse, the ambulance arrived 75 minutes after the first call. The time was 2.20. Now inside the temple were six police officers from the night shift who also wanted to bow, and volunteers who were cleaning the temple. In a few hours, its doors will open again on the 14th and last day of the icon’s stay in Athens.