Black Angels of Athos

PRESERVED against vital change by the salt of ancient religious tradition, there exist within the modern world various communities which still live the authentic life of dead centuries. Of such none has been more remarkable, more continuous, and more rich in sociological interest than the celibate medieval community of Mt. Athos. Its millennial resistance to the forces of changing civilizations has led various writers to give an account of it, but no study has heretofore been made which attempts a sociological analysis of its organization and of the forces at work within it. Mr. Choukas has essayed this task. He possessed the initial combination of qualities prerequisite for the undertaking. Greek by origin and competent in the language, sympathetic in approach, discerning, sociologically trained, he equipped himself for the task by residence on the Holy Mountain. We may be grateful that before the now manifest forces of disintegration have undermined this most stubborn stronghold of an ancient order we can look on the picture he presents to us of its daily manner of life, of the relation between ideal and practice, of the problems of its celibate segregation, of the forces and schisms within it, of the impacts from without, and of the spirit in which it responds.

What is perhaps most significant to the sociologist in the whole picture is the manner in which this monastic society is organized to maintain its solidarity and its tradition in face of all the impulses of human beings which were against it. ...As we read Mr. Choukas’ account we pass from the external scene of peaceful retreats on austere heights to the more intimate view of an obdurate and dubious struggle waged within themselves by men of simple childlike minds, oblivious, it may be, of the real issues of this age-old fight which they think of as that between “the flesh” and “the spirit,”...