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Zdravka Michailova 

Exclusively for GRReporter 

One can say that on the Cycladic island of Amorgos God is everywhere. In the light over the Aegean the monastery “Panagia (Virgin) Chozoviotissa," the emblem of the island, looks like a miracle. According to the custom, the icon of the Virgin Mary leaves the monastery on Resurrection on Sunday and goes to every large villages, to bless all. A week later - on Thomas the Apostle Day, after vespers in the church in the main village Chora, which is located on a naturally fortified height, centuries ago providing a refuge by piracy raids, the icon is taken back to the monastery, accompanied by folk procession. After this profound expression of reverence and awe, the icon is greeted with administering a Liturgy. 

Popular legend tells that the monastery was founded by monks who came from elsewhere - from Chozova in today’s Palestine. There, written sources confirm the existence of important Orthodox monasteries in the first centuries of Christianity. After the monastery was devastated by their conquerors, the monks crossed the sea and approached the coast on the island Amorgos, which reminded them of their home, and so they decided to stop and establish a new monastery there. The waves brought the Chozoviotissa icon and after it was found on the shore, the building of her temple began. Every morning the workers found the temple broken down, until finally they noticed that the trowel and plummet of the craftsman were hanging three hundred meters from the high rock that overlooks the sea. 

Thus they understood that the will of Mary was for the monastery to be built at that location over a vertical precipice from which the breath stops, but once you look up, the sight of the high rock uplifts you. The cloister, visible only from the sea, is wedged in the rock and looks like it is hanging, grabbed over it. Its width does not exceed five meters and its height is divided into five floor levels between which there is a man-hole with whitewashed narrow stairs. In 1088 the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus granted the monastery stauropegic (directly subordinated to the Ecumenical Patriarchate) Rights and since then, along with the Monastery of “St. John the Theologian" in Patmos, the monastery was one of the two most important Orthodox shrines in the Aegean Sea. 

Indeed, on the island you can find the light of the divine, not only during following the folk procession, but also while just enjoying the incredible natural beauty. The Greek Nobel prize winner poet Odysseas Elytis also drew inspiration from the island for his poem "It Is Truly Met", which as a hymn of praise echoed "Amorgos Truly Met" ( «Άξιον εστί η Αμοργός»). In another poem "Monogram" he says: "I transfuse in love as the light from the full moon, from everywhere.” 

A close friend of his and also to the poet Nobel prize winner Giorgos Seferis, the poet Nikos Gatsos, became known as the author of a single book of poetry entitled "Amorgos" (1943), although he never even visited the island. Unusual phenomenon in Greek literature, he occupies an important place in the history of Greek modernism."Amorgos" by Gatsos printed during the German occupation, is a long poem, which in an impressive way combines surrealistic elements with images of Greek folk songs. The huge popularity of these poems is also owed the music of composer Manos Hadzidakis: "With my homeland attached to the sails and oars / hanging in the wind / The castaways gently slept like dead beasts in / pallet of sponges." 

Amorgos is known from ancient times, but mostly to European travelers from the 17^th and 18^th century, because of Cycladic idols, especially those found at the nearby - now vacant - island of Keros. Traces of the Cycladic culture there, were first established in 1850 by German archaeologist Ludwig Ross - model of scientist-Hellenist, who settled in Greece after the liberation, together with the court of the first Greek King Otto, son of the ruler-Hellenist Ludwig of Bavaria. The main findings are Cycladic idols, small marble statuettes, and also a number of ceramic vessels and objects. Samples can be seen at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens, and the samples, which left Greece, because they were re-sold by antiques dealers and treasure hunters or took away by European diplomats before the liberation of Greece from Ottoman rule, are located in prestigious museums, among which are leading collections in the British Museum and Ashmolean Museum. Found on Keros is the oldest image of a musician - an idol depicting a man playing a harp. Due to their shape and size, before realizing their true value, the locals called them "dolls". 

In recent years, Amorgos is undergoing a period of resurgent popularity. It is one of the most beautiful islands in Greece and there is no doubt its cordial, nice, sociable and kind people are its greatest asset. Its beaches are not the most comfortable in the Aegean Sea, and its night life cannot be compared with that of Santorini, Mykonos and Paros, but the unique island radiates energy and magnetism. 

The sea view from its bare steep slopes, intersected by terraced dry masonry, reinforcing them against landslides, is breathtaking. A population of 35 000 goats creeps all around, destroying each newly grown sapling, unless they are closed in. The sea around Amorgos has crystal clear waters, and the two deserted islands opposite of it, to which during the summer there are boats every hour, provide alternative diving for those who prefer solitude. 

Agios Pavlos beach with its sand beach, which continues as an underwater reef to the island Nikuriya (owned as most lands here by the Greek Church), reminds more of a Caribbean lagoon than of Aegean bay. The profound sea surrounding of the island has been attracting divers from all around the world for years. Not by accident the French director Luc Besson has chosen St. Anna Bay, which is located below the monastery Chozoviotissa, to shoot his 1985 film "The Big Blue" with Jean Reno. In the film the Sicilian diver Enzo Molinari said to his friend: "God is at the bottom of the sea and I dive to find him.” 

The eight times “Cesar” award nominated film by the French director illustrates the crystal turquoise waters with emerald glow and its natural beauty and archeological excavations once again begin to attract tourists - from pilgrims of antiquity to swept away ecotourism enthusiasts, who explore the ancient and new paths crossing the island. Among the wide range of tourists there are also quite naturally Frenchmen as well. 

The motivation of the tourists, who decided to take the ship from Piraeus (perhaps fortunately Amorgos does not have an airport and the trip to there ranges from 5 to 9 hours depending on the speed of the ship) is different: worshipers of ancient antiquity, fans of religious tourism keen on ecotourism, researchers of the rich aromatic herbs and grasses along the old nature and new paved trails crossing the island. Although lately there is a tourist boom, the profile of the tourists meets the appearance of the island and helps its conservation. 

All religions seek the light, the enlightenment. Buddha means "enlightened" and one of the peaks in the Eleusinian mysteries is the flashing light for those who have understood the dedication. When the wheat class - a symbol of the fertility goddess Demeter, was shown Jesus told his disciples: "I am the light and the path”. Greeks live with this light without analyzing it, without reflecting on it, but for many it is the source of that transparency and clarity in philosophical thought, which is crystallized in the Ionian coasts and the archaic art in the Aegean archipelago. Greeks replace the barbaric intoxication and despotism worship with the divine light and the arts of Apollo, constantly finding with marine passion new and new territories of the spirit, which they try to colonize by expanding and overcoming the light of thought. 

Zdravka Michailova was awarded the prize of the Union of Greek Writers in 2005 for best translation of a Greek author of the Balkan language book "Andreas Embirikos: surrealist, psychoanalyst and photographer”. She has translated thirty books from Greek to Bulgarian and several from Bulgarian to Greek: prose, poetry, essays, theater plays, stories.