The third contact print from the Cas Oorthuys files in the Dutch photo museum contains pictures of Simonos Petras and Docheiariou. He did not visit these monasteries, because photographs up close are missing. And on this contact print number 99027 I run into a chronological problem. The two monasteries are in fact far apart and between the monastery are the harbor town of Dafni, Xenofontos and the Russian monastery Panteleimonos situated. Cas Oorthuys did pay a visit to this Russian monastery, as we will see on the next contact print, that I will publish later. I suspect that Cas Oorthuys confused his travel schedule afterwards and that he accidentally pasted Docheiariou into his contact printout earlier.

Simonos Petras monastery, seen from the arsanas – harbor. This probably one of the finest monasteries on the Holy Mountain, that looms over the rocks on which it is built. Many people say this monastery resambles the Tibetian monasteries in the Himalaya.

The arsanas of Simonos Petras in 1957 and – by coincidence – my photo on the same spot, 58 years later.

Simonos Petras

The monastery of Docheiariou, seen from a boat. This is the last monastery that you will see from the baot before arriving in Ouranopolis. As you can see on the map below it is very far from Simonos Petras.

Docheiariou monastery in 1957.

When we visited this monastery in 1980 we were the only two pilgrims. We met a professor from Thessaloniki, who microfilmed the books from the library and gave us a tour in the old tower. I remember the age-old parchment covers and the pages that had tiny holes, made by the bookworms. One of the bound pages would be a page from a 4th century book.

Four fishermen in their boat at the harbor of Docheiariou, one of them drinking water from a bucket.

Docheiariou: another photo of the fishermen in their boat and the jetty.

Wim Voogd, 29 December 2020