Let me introduce you to father Mardoris, a monk who lives in the Mount Athos in Greece. The monks of his monastery apply an extremist orthodoxy and they have some problems with the other monasteries of the Mount.
Before coming there he was a soldier in the Greek secret army but he found he haddone a lot of awful things so he had to make amends for his sinners. He arrived there 30 years ago and never want to come back to the Occidental World because there are people who are not Christians.
His job is to close the door at the end of the day and make the prayer’s call with the bells. He also had to light the candles before the mass.
In his monastery, the women and the female animals are completely prohibited except the Virgin Mary and cats. The reason is because the monks can’t have pleasure and distractions, for example they can’t swim in the turquoise sea or eat meat..
Another particularity is that they follow the Julien’s calendar and the Byzantine’s hour, so they’re completely offset from our world and they have to pray at the middle of the night. The houses and the others building are built like in the old time and there is no electricity so when you visit that place it’s like a bounce of one thousand years in the past.
I chose this person because I find him really impressive and I know that I couldn’t live like that and give up all the pleasure of my life. He has probably made some things wrong in the past and he tries to have a better life.
More generally I think that we shouldn’t judge people who have a lifestyle that differs from “the norm” because some things that seem different for us is just normal for them. We should just leave this people alone and not try to change them.
Blog de Tom 