P.M. Koufopoulos & S.B. Mamaloukos,The Metalwork of Mount Athos ...

FRIENDS OF MOUNT ATHOS REVIEWS

The Metalwork of Mount Athos from the 18th to the 20th Century (in Greek). By Petros M. Koufopoulos and Stavros B. Mamaloukos. Athens: Politistiko Technologiko Idryma ETBA, 1997. 335 pages. Price p/b 10,000 drachmas. ISBN 960-244-039-2.[i]

One of the great pillars that uphold the structure of Athonite monasticism, and perhaps the least studied or understood, is work. The daily work or diakonima of the monk, through which he will by the sweat of his brow and the skill of his hands accumulate no riches in this world, is a true labour of love. I overheard a young Father at Vatopedi, who had been toiling for days at a particularly exhausting task, remark to another Father that, because in his tiredness he had been grumpy to some visitors, he could expect no wages that day. How can we in 'the world', where too much is never enough, even begin to understand this wage packet?

Petros Koufopoulos and Stavros Mamaloukos have taken a period of two centuries and focused on an endeavour of once great importance to the Holy Mountain and by dint of meticulous research and hard work illuminated the working lives of ordinary monks and incidentally produced a wonderful book. Part I documents the growth and decline of metalworking on the Mountain. Nothing is left out. We are told about types of metalworking, supply of raw materials, transportation, sources of energy, sale of products, working conditions, living conditions, and much much more. In this sea of information fascinating facts bob to the surface. I did not know, for instance, that in the eighteenth century Athos was the chief producer of clocks to the Ottoman empire and especially famous for its pendulums. Nor is it widely known, I am sure, that in the eighteenth century Athos was an important producer of guns; contemporary records show that there were ten gunsmiths' workshops, one of which was still in the records as late as 1920. Part II is a catalogue of the known craftsmen, both lay and monk, showing their specializations. There were on the Mountain blacksmiths, gunsmiths, locksmiths, tinsmiths, coppersmiths, tin platers, brass founders, bell founders, clockmakers, and silversmiths - gold does not seem to have been worked. Part III is a monastery-by-monastery record of the various workshops recorded in painstaking detail. The authors, who are both architects engaged in a variety of Athonite projects including the restoration of the Protaton Tower in Karyes, have produced beautiful scale drawings of the main workshops. The book is profusely illustrated in black and white with contemporary and archive photographs showing the workshops and the Fathers who worked in them. Splendid patriarchs are portrayed in leather aprons, sparks showering, as they beat the hot iron into the shapes of their salvation.

For me, though, there is one long sad note struck by this excellent book and that is the fact that it is an epitaph for a past era. The infernal combustion engine has replaced the mule, so the blacksmith has gone, the quartz chip has done for the clockmaker, plastic and aluminium have seen off the tinsmiths, coppersmiths, and platers, and the Chinese make a cheaper Kalashnikov. The old hand skills are no longer required, so the workshops are mainly derelict and rotting, the tools rusty, and the would-be clockmaker a computer engineer. The monstrous and inhuman scale of 'the world' is creeping across the face of Athos - that wild, untouched place where man, small and alone, took on the unknowable and through prayer and the toil of his hands might know God. Anyone who has seen the bulldozers gouging out roads and witnessed the massive civil-engineering projects at nearly every monastery could be forgiven for preferring the gentler sounds of hammer on anvil and the hiss of hot metal quenched in cold water.

ANTHONY HAZLEDINE

Fairford