I mentioned yesterday that new roof was tested during the severe thunderstorm and that the roof was not without leakage. Here a picture of the church:

and the dome

The dome is painted with an extraordinary scene, that I never saw before on Athos: an image of God himself, with the child Jezus on his lap, the Holy Spirit – a dove –  and in total nine cherubim flying in the clouds. Here in detail:
A closer look at the icons in church show St. Paul en Peter (L) and two icons of the tranfuguration of the Panaghia and the Holy Cross (Timiou Stavrou) (R).    Here are the other original paintings of different Holy men that I saw in the church:

Just after entering the front of the kelli door you can find some more original murals on the wall of a hallway:

In his shed opposite to the main building Father David has his own in incense production line. He proud of the high qualitity and the different smells of his product: he uses a higher percentage of odoriferous substances and according to Father David the effect in church is immediately noticeable. He told that it is dangerous job, because you should not inhale to much smook while the incense is cooking!

Large quantities of small incense “balls”, the next picture shows the end-product in its box.

How the order this high quality incense? see the text on the side of the box!

In the garden you find the ossuary I mentioned in the last blog (with the hornets):Here lie the bones of the Lotz, the former ‘abbot’ of this kelli.

But this time I could not find his skull…….After one last walk around the house in the garden, cleaning our sleeping room and breakfast

it was time to say goodbye and thank Father David for his hospitality and friendship. It was an unforgetable stay and we hope to return soon.The electric system of the car of Father David had gone to pieces because of lightning struck, so we called a father of a neighbouring kelli to bring us to Skiti Lakkou: it took us more than one hour by car (first back to Karakalou and then the high road to Lakkou)!

      Wim, 30/12