This post is the last in a series of five, with an overview of the pictures Cas Oorthuys made during his short visit to the Holy Mountain in July 1957. The source of the more than 800 copies of his photographs is from the Nederlands fotomuseum in Rotterdam (source). The photographer and his fellow pilgrim A. den Doolaard spend their last night in the russian monastery Panteleimonos.

The main church – katholicon – of Panteleimonos in 1957.

The arsanas of Panteleimonos, in those days sailing ships were still moored.

This large building outside the monastery walls, is the archondariki. Here the building is still intact. A few years later the left part of building was destroyed by fire: only the outher walls remained.

Arsanas Panteleimonos

The archondariki and the monastery Panteleimonos

Arsanas Sografou: one of the most pitoreque places on the Holy Mountain. Next to boathouse is a traditional defense tower, which has the appearance of medieval times when pirats and crusaders made the peninsula unsafe.

Even though renovation work has taken place in 2007, the location kept its original atmosphere.

Ouranopolis (called Prosphori in 1957): The pyrgos tower of Joice and Sydney Loch. Sydney Loch died a three years earlier , on the 6th of February 1954, when trying to save a pelican in a winter storm. His book “Athos The Holy Mountain” was published in 1957.

At that time in 1980 Joice Loch still lived in the tower. She died in 1982. Renovation work is underway.

The jetty of Ouranopolis: boys swimming

The beach seen from the jetty in Ouranopolis: a group welcomes the returning pilgrims, at that time probably still a special feature.

Kids on the beach in front of the pyrgos tower.

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The pilgrims in the bus to Ierissos/Stratoni. Cas Oorthuys and A. den Doolaard did not stay in Ouranopolis, probably because there were no hotels in town in 1957. They went back to Ierissos and enjoyed a good meal and a good night sleep!

This ends the publication of a small part of the Cas Oorthuys collection from the Dutch Photo museum. I know that much more content is available and I hope to get permission the share the other photos with you somewhere in the near future.

The writer A. den Doolaard ended his musings on Athos as follows at the end of his book “Greeks are no gods”:

“Orthodox monasticism was a tough, old body in which the red blood cells no longer renewed.”

The answer to these thoughts from the Dutch writer by the guide Asterios was: “Do not forget that the monasteries have been here for a thousand years and during that time there have been more periods of decline.” “I’ve been coming to Athos for so long,” he laughed, “that I’ve been infected with it. Ten thousand monks or two thousand, does that make any real difference? Can you foresee what will happen after the year 2000 “?

Profetical words indeed! Asterios made a prediction that has almost completely come true. Athos has regained its appeal and is once again a powerful source of inspiration for so many.

We would like to thank all our readers for visiting our website this difficult year 2020. We are proud to have almost 107 K hits and 31 K visitors this year. As many others we had to postpone our planned 2020-pilgrimage and we hope that 2021 will bring better times for all of you. Stay safe and be friendly to everyone, regardless, race, color, gender, religion or conviction.

Wim Voogd, 31 December 2020 (also on behalf of Herman Voogd and Bas Kamps)

NB. For those who read Dutch texts: in the attachments below you will find three articles from the newspaper “Limburgsch Dagblad” from July and August 1957, where A. den Doolaard writes about his pilgrimage to Athos. The texts are from his book “Greeks are not gods” that was published in 1959.

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