On the 21th of December 2016 my good friend Giannis Kontsiotis  – also called Keliotes – decided to close down his Athos weblog because of his age and health issues. He started with this blog, and later changed to Agioretikes Mnimes, where, in the eight years, he produced 9484 posts (!) about the Holy Mountain, an incredable achievement. Although for me it sometimes is difficult to read the Greek texts, it provided a goldmine of information about Athos and we frequently exchanged content and pictures for our weblogs: so we owe him a lot and thank him for the meticulous and unique work for the Athos community ! We will miss his weblog very much and we wish him all the best in the future.

I met Giannis last year in kelli Maroudá (picture above) and I hope to see him next year in May on the Holy Mountain.

To Giannis – and all our readers ofcourse – a very good and healthy 2017!

Wim Voogd, 31/12