Materializations of Faith on Mount Athos

This paper offers two different ways of engaging with the world society, by comparing the means of production and distribution of sacred products of two monasteries of Mount Athos in the new market of faith. First, it looks at the reproduction of miraculous ribbons, blessed by the Girdle of the Virgin Mary kept in the monastery of Vatopaidi, which are exported worldwide through a network of churches, shops, and the internet. The second part of the paper focuses on the prophecies of the End of Time as a very different product exported by the self-proclaimed 'zealot' monks of the rival and neighbouring monastery of Esfigmenou. The paper highlights both the heterogeneity of monastic life on the Mount, as well as, the monks' economic and political agency and impact in public life, as well as, the rapid changes that took place inside the monasteries in the last two decades, and in relation to a 'world' (cosmos) out there.