Tuesday, June 23rd - Impressions

Once the sun was up (around 6) I was wide awake! I hadn’t been able to see much of the complex yet, and now had the opportunity to walk around and take some pictures. They don’t have internet access here, though I thought they would, so you are probably reading this a few days late as we have to drive into town to connect which doesn’t happen every day. The landscape of the monastery and its surroundings are incredible. We are nestled in a valley in Mount Menoikeion, and the road up winds around the hillside for half an hour out of the nearest town of Serres. It’s rained the last two days and everyone is saying it usually doesn’t do so.

This was also the first day I really got to interact with my group members. There are ten of us now: 7 Princeton/Columbia students (only 1 undergrad) most of whom are in the classical studies program focusing on their masters or doctorate dissertation, two professors/leaders, and then myself. Outside of the fact that I can’t join in on the conversations about times in the history library at Princeton, everyone has been extremely welcoming and I’m very happy I decided to come. Admittedly, as an architecture student with a limited historical background in comparison to these students who study it constantly, there are obviously many things that are going over my head. However, I’m able to wrap my head around basic concepts of monastic and Byzantine life and history by being present for conversation and explanation of research projects.

Aside from the constant excursion-based seminar run by Nikos, I will be working on project documenting hundreds of icons which the monastery owns, allowing for easy reference in digital form by the nuns. Prodromos Monastery has limited documentation on it, and this research group is important to furthering the understanding of the monastery and its relationship to the history of Byzantine art and architecture.

The relationship this program has developed with the nuns is rare. We stay in their living quarters, eat under their roof, and attend their sacred religious events. They are all incredibly nice and even if they don’t speak any English, they greet us with a “Hello” and smile every time we see them.

We visited a sister of our Monastery today dedicated to the Virgin Mary near Drama (ours is dedicated to St. John the Baptist, in Greek: Prodromos). The differences between the two were obvious, but the similarities were absolutely incredible. Both monasteries have similar wall paintings, topographical settings, and were resurrected by nuns at around the same time (theirs a bit before ours, which occurred in the 1986). However, after both were devastated by war within the Balkans throughout the 20 century, the revitalization and rebuilding processes were gone about quite differently. Our monastery has made the decision to (re)develop itself in a way that cherishes the history of the place in an attempt to preserve as much as possible. The other monastery developed itself from the ground up in a fashion that does not celebrate what was there previously. This could be looked at in two ways: they are continuing the tradition of past centuries by adding new layers and redeveloping as they always have, or they are failing to celebrate the site historically by preserving rather than building over… I feel more comfortable and interested in a celebration of the past, and this is where my passion for heritage preservation and urban planning have sparked from.