Visits to Monasteries in the Levant

by Robert Curzon

The monastery of Caracalla is not so large as St. Laura, and in many points resembles an ancient Gothic castle. It is beautifully situated on a promontory of rock two miles from the sea, and viewed from the lofty ground by which we approached it, the buildings had a most striking effect, with the dark blue sea for a background and the lofty rock of Samotraki looming in the distance, whilst the still more remote mountains of Roumelia closed in the picture. As for the island of Samotraki, it must have been created solely for the benefit of artists and admirers of the picturesque, for it is fit for nothing else. It is high and barren, a congeries of gigantic precipices and ridges. I suppose one can land upon it somewhere, for people live on it who are said to be arrant pirates; but as one passes by it at sea, its interminable ribs of grey rock, with the waves lashing against them, are dreary-looking in the extreme; and it is only when far distant that it becomes a beautiful object.

I sent in my servant as ambassador to explain that the first cousin, once removed, of the Emperor of all the Franks was at the gate, and to show the letter of the Greek patriarch. Incontinently the agoumenos made his appearance at the porch with many expressions of welcome and goodwill. I believe it was longer than the days of his life since a Frank had entered the convent, and I doubt whether he had ever seen one before, for he looked so disappointed when he found that I had no tail or horns, and barring his glorious long beard, that I was so little different from himself. We made many speeches to each other, he in heathen Greek and I in English, seasoned with innumerable bows, gesticulations, and téménah; after which I jumped off my mule and we entered the precincts of the monastery, attended by a long train of bearded fathers who came out to stare at me.

The monastery of Caracalla covers about one acre of ground; it is surrounded with a high strong wall, over which appear roofs and domes; and on the left of the great square tower, near the gate, a range of rooms, built of wood, project over the battlements as at the monastery of St Laura. Within is a large irregular court-yard, in the centre of which stands the church, and several little chapels or rooms fitted up as places of worship are scattered about in different parts of the building among the chambers inhabited by the monks. I found that this was the uniform arrangement in all the monasteries of Mount Athos and in nearly all Greek monasteries in the Levant. This monastery was founded by Caracallos, a Roman: who he was, or when he lived, I do not know; but from its appearance this must be a very ancient establishment. By Roman, perhaps, is meant Greek, for Greece is called Roumeli to this day; and the Constantinopolitans called themselves Romans in the old time, as in Persia and Koordistan the Sultan is called Roomi Padischah, the Roman Emperor, by those whose education and general attainments enable them to make mention of so distant and mysterious a potentate. Afterwards Petrus, Authentes or Waywode of Moldavia, sent his protospaithaire, that is his chief swordsman or commander-in-chief, to found a monastery on the Holy Mountain, and supplied him with a sum of money for the purpose; but the chief swordsman, after expending a very trivial portion of it in building a small tower on the sea-shore, pocketed the rest and returned to court. The waywode having found out what he had been at, ordered his head to be cut off; but he prayed so earnestly to be allowed to keep his head and rebuild the monastery of Caracalla out of his own money, that his master consented. The new church was dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, and ultimately the ex-chief swordsman prevailed upon the waywode to come to Caracalla and take the vows. They both assumed the same name of Pachomius, and died in the odour of sanctity. All this, and many more legends, was I told by the worthy agoumenos, who was altogether a most excellent person; but he had an unfortunate habit of selecting the most windy places for detailing them, an open archway, the top of an external staircase, or the parapet of a tower, until at last he chilled my curiosity down to zero. In all his words and acts he constantly referred to brother Joasaph, the second in command, to whose superior wisdom he always seemed to bow, and who was quite the right-hand man of the abbot.

My friend first took me to the church, which is of moderate size, the walls ornamented with stiff fresco pictures of the saints, none of them certainly later than the twelfth century, and some probably very much earlier. There were some relics, but the silver shrines containing them were not remarkable for richness or antiquity. On the altar there were two very remarkable crosses, each of them about six or eight inches long, of carved wood set in gold and jewels of very early and beautiful workmanship; one of them in particular, which was presented to the church by the Emperor John Zimisces, was a most curious specimen of ancient jewellery.

This monastery is one of those over which the agoumenos has absolute control, and he was then repairing one side of the court and rebuilding a set of rooms which had been destroyed during the Greek war.

The library I found to be a dark closet near the entrance of the church; it had been locked up for many years, but the agoumenos made no difficulty in breaking the old-fashioned padlock by which the door was fastened. I found upon the ground and upon some broken-down shelves about four or five hundred volumes, chiefly printed books; but amongst them, every now and then, I stumbled upon a manuscript: of these there were about thirty on vellum and fifty or sixty on paper. I picked up a single loose leaf of very ancient uncial Greek characters, part of the Gospel of St. Matthew, written in small square letters and of small quarto size. I searched in vain for the volume to which this leaf belonged.

As I had found it impossible to purchase any manuscripts at St. Laura, I feared that the same would be the case in other monasteries; however, I made bold to ask for this single leaf as a thing of small value.

"Certainly!" said the agoumenos, "what do you want it for?"

My servant suggested that, perhaps, it might be useful to cover some jam pots or vases of preserves which I had at home.

"Oh!" said the agoumenos, "take some more;" and, without more ado, he seized upon an unfortunate thick quarto manuscript of the Acts and Epistles, and drawing out a knife cut out an inch thickness of leaves at the end before I could stop him. It proved to be the Apocalypse, which concluded the volume, but which is rarely found in early Greek manuscripts of the Acts: it was of the eleventh century. I ought, perhaps, to have slain the tomecide for his dreadful act of profanation, but his generosity reconciled me to his guilt, so I pocketed the Apocalypse, and asked him if he would sell me any of the other books, as he did not appear to set any particular value upon them.