Athos: Colors of Faith

Stratos Kalafatis (1966)

Five-year documentation of Mount Athos’s secluded Orthodox monastic community, focusing on spiritual sites and landscapes through a contemporary visual approach shaped by flash and vivid color.

Description

In Athos: Colors of Faith, executed between 2008 and 2013, Greek photographer Stratos Kalafatis offers an immersive exploration of Mount Athos, a self-governed monastic community in northern Greece renowned as the spiritual center of Eastern Orthodox monasticism. Over the course of 30 visits and 200 days, Kalafatis immersed himself in the secluded world of Mount Athos, photographing the monastic community, their ascetic routines, and the surrounding wilderness.

The unique male-only monastic society, governed by ancient regulations, offered Kalafatis the opportunity to investigate the interplay between longstanding spiritual practices and the changing dynamics of monastic life in the 21st century. His artistic vision centers around capturing the intangible essence of monastic spirituality and asceticism, deliberately avoiding mere documentary representation. Instead, his work aims to visually articulate the subtle, unseen aspects of Athos, seeking to reveal inner truths through prolonged, respectful interaction and observation.

Visually, Athos: Colors of Faith is distinguished by its intense use of color, saturated hues, and dramatic lighting. With a square-format medium film camera, Kalafatis works with either natural light to preserve the serenity or direct flash to make visible the otherwise concealed facets of monastic life. His compositions, often static, highlight the quiet dignity of the monks alongside the rugged beauty of their surroundings.

Exhibited widely, Athos: Colors of Faith debuted with the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation (MIET) in Thessaloniki (2014) and Athens (2015) before touring to Palazzo Saluzzo Paesana for "Torino Spiritualità," Turin (2015), the Accademia di Romania, Rome (2016), Trieste (2016), Museum Manege, St. Petersburg (2017), Galerie Intervalle, Paris (2018), and later to Synthesis Gallery, Sofia, and the International Meetings of Photography, Plovdiv (2021). Selections were also presented within the touring survey Faces Now – European Portrait Photography since 1990 (Bozar, Nederlands Fotomuseum, Thessaloniki Museum of Photography).

Behind the work

Avaton, meaning "inaccessible" in Greek, typically refers to the ban on women entering Mount Athos; for Kalafatis, it came to signify the sacred interiors, relics, and rituals he was not permitted to photograph.

Approaching both the people and the place with deep respect, Kalafatis engaged directly with his portrait subjects—conversing with them, staying in their cells, and receiving their blessing—ultimately earning their trust and permission to photograph them.

Quotes by the photographer

"The place has an energy and you can feel it whether you believe or not. I sometimes think that anyone who goes to Mount Athos will find what they’re in need of. If it’s God you’re looking for, then you’ll find Him."

"Mount Athos is difficult to photograph, not so much because it resists the mundane nature of photography, but mainly because it takes time to reveal itself. For more than 1000 years it has been hidden behind the semiotics of images, the tenderness of tradition and the miracles of faith. A place where silence and mystery balance past and present, tradition and freedom, strength and weakness, darkness and light. It is not easy for someone to overcome his heavy history, deep religiosity and create images that will respect the place on the one hand and the creative autonomy of the photographer on the other."

"People are not born on Mount Athos. They go there out of attraction, deep faith, need, curiosity or desperation..."

"I didn’t think it would take me so long when I started, but I kept feeling that I needed something more. I spent 200 days there over the course of 30 trips. I would take photographs, come home, develop the film and go back because something was calling me there."

"It wasn’t faith in God that took me to Mount Athos but my deep desire to see this cloistered universe through my lens."

"There were times when I was a spectator and others a participant in litanies, festal gatherings, vigils, discussions, miracles and revelations."

"What do I like about Mount Athos? The people, to begin with. There’s the landscape, of course, which is unique. And the smells. Like the smell of the refectory, which I remember from my first visit as a child. The formality also fascinates me, the way things are done, the way the monks enter the church, and how they eat all together."

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