Few subjects inspire the whole “National Geographic visits the strange natives” school of Godbeat journalism quicker than monasticism. This is especially true when journalists attempt to write about a ...

Bob Simon gets rare access to Mount Athos, a remote peninsula in northern Greece that is the spiritual capital of Orthodox Christianity. For more than a thousand years, monks on Mount Athos have lived ...

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MOUNT ATHOS, Greece — A church bell sounds, the staccato thudding of mallet on plank summons monks to afternoon prayers, deep voices are raised in communal chant. And high in the great tower of ...