Simonos Petra, a monastery on Mount Athos, embraces monks from diverse backgrounds, transcending national boundaries within the Orthodox Christian faith. This ecumenical spirit, rooted in the ...

The monastery welcomes anyone who would like to visit — provided they are male. In a more than 1,000-year-old tradition, women are banned from the entire peninsula, which is deemed the Virgin ...

MOUNT ATHOS, Greece (AP) — The medieval monastery clings almost impossibly to sheer cliffs high above the shimmering turquoise of the Aegean Sea. Rising from the rugged granite rock, its walls ...

MOUNT ATHOS, Greece (AP) — The medieval monastery clings almost impossibly to sheer cliffs high above the shimmering turquoise of the Aegean Sea. Rising from the rugged granite rock, its walls enclose ...

Father Serafeim prays in the ossuary of Simonopetra, or the Simonos Petra Monastery, home of the all-male autonomous community Agion Oros, or Holy Mountain, on the peninsula of Mount Athos in ...