First Woman in 1,000 Fears at Aft. Athos

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 928, 22 March 1930, Page 18

First Woman in 1,000 Fears at Aft. Athos

Monastic Retreat Where Even Female Animals are Forbidden Daring Work by French Journalist . . . I-'CY&YT 3 WOMAN has at last ; succeeded in visiting i Maryse Choisy, a fas- , i cinating young French , M CaSSfcjjT&j authoress, smuggled herself into this ancient Byzantine mon- , astic community sewed into a mattress, emerged as a valet, boldly walked through the streets that no female had “profaned” for almost a thousand years, slept in several of the principal monasteries, saw how the S,OOO monks lived, and literally played the role of a princess incognita until unmasked and thrown out on the fifth day. Since the year 3045 A.D., Mount Athos has been a forbidden land to I all women. The Orthodox monks — i Greeks, Russians, Bulgarians, Rumanians and Serbians —who inhabit the innumerable monasteries scattered j over this hilly peninsula jutting into l the Aegean Sea near Salonika, had m I many cases retired there because of unhappy love affairs. Whether under the Byzantine, Turkish or Greek sovereignty, the government always respected the monks’ wishes and maintained a ring of police around the colony to hold back the women. In the course of centuries innumerable curious ones tried to break in, either in disguise or by landing in remote inlets from small boats, hut they were always caught and turned back. Today even a male visitor requires a dozen different visas to go there, and the Greek Government has an asolute rule against giving the latter to women. The ban not only applies to members of the so-called weaker human sex. Even cows, she-asses, she- | rabbits, she-goats and chickens that wandered innocently across the narrow neck of land from the mainland were turned back. “I heard of three means by which a woman disguised as a man might enter Mount Athos,” Mile. Choisy, who is a graduate of Oxford and also of the Sorbonne, explained. “The first thing was to debark with a false passport at Daphni, the princi- ! pal port of the peninsula, with other visitors. This was impractical. The Greek police, Greek Government and others had heard of my scheme and had broadcast my description. “The second means was to go by land, which meant 20 hours on muleback across stony, wooded hills. 1 had confidence in the mules,- but none in the mule-drivers. “The third was to go as someone’s valet or domestic, taking a small boat that would land me on some forsaken | point on Mount Athos. This was not a bad scheme, but the Aegean is a nasty sea, and anyone venturing out in a small boat takes a great risk.” Three Plans Discarded Mile. Choisy discarded these three plans but before choosing the good one she got her papers in. order. First of all she had persuaded an Italian newspaperman who was going to Athos to take her along as his “domestic,” the passport control being less severe for servants. After a long hunt for a false passport gang, they finally found two Greek actors out of jobs who agreed to let the two writers use their passports temporarily for 10,000 drachmas. This arranged, they found a rascal who manufactured fake visas. “The most important of our preparations were these identity papers, which impress imbeciles in all parts of the world,” she smilingly declared. “To penetrate on Mount Athos, even . if you are a long-whiskered archaeologist, one must be recommended by his consul, get a special visa from the Governor of Salonika, and heaven only : knows how many others. An honest person with an authentic passport rarely has all of them, and it is only ! the faked passports that are in order.

Tlie reason is obvious; the passport and visa fakers remember all the necessary formalities because that is their business. The stamps of these fakers are clean, pretty, readable, impressive. And it should be so!” With most.of her preparations made, Mile. Choisy suddenly discovered at Salonika that she was being watched by Greek plainclothesmen, tipped off from Athens that she was planning to smuggle herself on to the holy mountain. The two actors were at hand and she calmly handed one some more money to change identities even further with her. , “If I want to leave here. I must make these detectives think that I am still at Salonika,” she told the astonished actor. “You must play Maryse Choisy while I am at Athos. I will give you all of my clothes, rent you a hotel room in my name, and j tell you everything you must do. Order a coffee at eight o’clock every morn- \ ing, as I do; write all day long in your room; refuse to receive any reporters; buy several French magazines every time you go out; ask for a Peche Melba in every restaurant you enter, and if the detectives start a conversation flirt a little and buy them a cocktail.” • With her help, her clothes and her face paints, he made himself up so that he “looked more like Maryse Choisy than herself,” and then one dark night she and the Italian journalist slipped off to Cavala, the jumpingoff place for Mount Athos. Mile Choisy was dresed as a smart | young Greek valet. She wore a, j snappy grey suit, men’s shoes, of course, and a cap. Her hair fitted into this picture all right as she always keeps it very short, and to this she pasted a little moustache on her upper lip. She tested out this disguise in Cavalla for several days with complete success. The problem was then to find someone who would take her and the Italian to Athos as discreetly as possible. She finally found a peasant living among the monks who agreed to handle the whole business for another 10,000 drachmas. After much plotting they finally agreed on the following strategy: Instead of going to Daphni, the principal port, the three of. them would take a small cargo boat to Vatopedi, a smaller landing place with fewer police. Although the peasant-guide considered Maryse’s disguise excellent and her papers in order, he found it more prudent to take her along in a mattress, as all experienced travellers in the Balkans carry their own bedding with them. The police at the ports of Athos are extremely inquisitive, and never hesitate to search a person when their sex is in doubt. From Vatopedi they would go by mule to Karyes, the capital, where the Italian would go into the Governor’s house and also the chief abbot’s house more. Maryse would remain in the to have their papers approved once mattress, spread over a mule standing outside the house, until the formalities were complied with. The i governor and chief abbot, "would not

insist on seeing the Italian's domestic, and after leaving Karyes for the principal monasteries they would halt in the woods and release the Frenchwoman from the bedding. After that, if she kept in the background and played a valet’s role, there was little chance of anyone questioning her. There are no police in the interior of this rugged peninsula. The plan worked out to perfection. This peninsula is about 10 miles long and from five to seven miles wide, with Mount Athos rising in the centre like a pyramid,' over 6,000 feet high. Around this mountain, clusters the lore of more than 20 centuries for Zeus had a temple there. Xerxes tried to cut a canal through the neck that joins it to the mainland, and Dinocrates, the architect, had a great scheme for building there a statue of Alexander the Great, holding a city in one hand and in the other a flowing spring. It was the very cradle of antiquity. Toward the west are the sheer slopes of Mount Olympus, the antique shrine of the gods. A little to the east are the plains of Troy. Across the Aegean came every enemy that the east unleashed against Hellenic culture. But the principal fame of Athos begins with the Christian era. A religious colony was established there about the year 300 A.D., and then all through Byzantine times grew up a vast group of monasteries, many of which remain to the present day. The last one, the Russikou, built just before the world war. is so gigantic that it can contain 6’ooo monks! Today this remote mountain is one of the last strongholds of the medieval ages, and its monasteries possess untold literary treasures and souvenirs of the early Christian era. “We asked for lodging at the Russian skite of St. Andre —a skite Is a small monastery —ami they put n-.e in a small cell in the servants’ quarter,” says Mile. Choisy. “I was so tired that I fell right off to sleep, without the least little boast.” Setting forth early that morning Mile. Choisy found Athos an extraordinary contrast of beauty and muck. On the one hand, she discovered the most wonderful sunsets, inv; odours and < Ou the othei ' ■ . ’ ' other settlements \ with out a single c -l-si or the monks were c • - ui ;; the streets were dirt r lodgings were br. i, and masteries are not kept ci Mile. Choi monks with • least suspicion, b was noticed by a Greek doctor, who recently installed himself ou Athos. He had had a French wife at one time who greatly resembled Mile. Choisy, and, becoming suspicious, he questioned her and discovered her sex. The doctor was not very gallant, for he threatened to expose her if she remained there another day, and rather than make a scandal she left by land and by mule, via Hierissos, on the very instant.