From the Holy Mountain: A Journey among the Christians of the Middle East [Paperback]

William Dalrymple (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 1999

In 587 a.d., two monks set off on an extraordinary journey that would take them in an arc across the entire Byzantine world, from the shores of the Bosphorus to the sand dunes of Egypt. On the way John Moschos and his pupil Sophronius the Sophist stayed in caves, monasteries, and remote hermitages, collecting the wisdom of the stylites and the desert fathers before their fragile world finally shattered under the great eruption of Islam. More than a thousand years later, using Moschos's writings as his guide, William Dalrymple sets off to retrace their footsteps and composes "an evensong for a dying civilization" --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

As a writer and as a traveler, Dalrymple treads the now-faint trail marked out by sixth-century monk John Moschos, who wandered the world of Eastern Byzantium, visiting the scattered Christian monasteries and hermitages and recording the rituals he saw and the preaching he heard in a book called The Spiritual Meadow. Unlike its predecessor, Dalrymple's account of his journey through the same regions leads, not to meditations upon the eternal God, but, rather, to insights into a dying culture. For whether among Surianis in eastern Turkey, Armenians in Syria and Israel, or Coptics in Egypt, Dalrymple finds only remnants of the Christian culture from which Moschos drew inspiration. The author cannot stop the often-violent persecution or the steady immigration, which are pushing Christianity to extinction in the land of its birth. Yet he can preserve the voices of the steadfast souls who guard the last sparks of a besieged faith. Thus, this book stands--like the chapels, monasteries, and tombs visited during the journey--as a monument to what once was. But Dalrymple also points the way to a better future by repeatedly stressing the similarities in origin and practice linking Christianity and Islam and by documenting real (though all too rare) instances in which mutual respect and tolerance bring the Muslim and the Christian together in prayer. Travel literature of real substance. Bryce Christensen --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

A memorable historical journey through the twilight of Eastern Christianity in the Middle East, heartfelt and beautifully told. Dalrymple (The City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi, 1994) has carved an unorthodox niche for an English travel writer: He is following in the 1,400-year-old path of an Orthodox monk. In 587, Friar John Moschos and a young student trekked across the Middle East, collecting precious relics and manuscripts from obscure monasteries, from present-day Turkey to Egypt. Dalrymples quest is similar; he is preserving the stories of the last generation of Orthodox Christians in the Middle East. Retracing Moschoss steps, Dalrymple finds once glorious Christian communities on the brink of extinction. One Turkish village that had 17 Syrian Orthodox churches now has only one [Christian] inhabitant, its elderly priest. In Turkey, Armenian Christianity has been more systematically erased, with cathedrals renovated into mosques, gravestones obliterated, and any mention of the Armenian presence in Turkey censored from publications, turning their existence into a historical myth. In one town, Dalrymple interviews a superannuated survivor of the Syrian Christian resistance of 1915, when Syrians witnessed the genocide of the Armenians and knew that they were next to be deported. Today, however, the descendants of Orthodox Christians in Turkey and elsewhere are emigrating as quickly as they can. Old churches stand abandoned or are employed for other purposesin Istanbul, for example, Dalrymple is denied entrance to a famous basilica because there is a Turkish beauty contest going on inside. Dalrymple is a talented writer, with a subtle wit, a keen eye for historical irony, and a relish for architectural detail. If his treatment of Eastern Orthodoxy is somewhat romantic, ignoring centuries of internecine conflict among various ethnic groups, it is understandable given his urgency to record the plight of this last generation of Orthodox practitioners in Muslim-dominated areas. An evensong for a dying civilization. (24 b&w and 8 color photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (March 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805061770
• ISBN-13: 978-0805061772
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #224,919 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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47 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a look at Christians in the modern Middle East, October 18, 2000

By 

W M - See all my reviews

This review is from: From the Holy Mountain: A Journey among the Christians of the Middle East (Paperback)

I was familiar with the author's previous works on India and Central Asia so I had high expectations when I bought From the Holy Mountain. I'm glad I did it!

Dalrymple, a Roman Catholic from Scotland, recreates the journeys of the Christian monk John Moschos who wandered from city to cave to monastary throughout the Levant in the 6th century. In so doing the author provides a glimpse of what life is like for the dwindling Christian population still living in the Middle East today.

What he finds is both fascinating and tragic. He meets some of the last surviving members of the tiny Greek communities in Istanbul and Alexandria. He braves PKK terrorists in Turkey and Muslim terrorists in Upper Egypt. He visits desperate Christian Palestinian refugees inside Israel. He breaks bread with besieged monks in Syria and Lebanon. He talks with a Maronite warlord in Beirut. He interviews the vulgar inhabitants of a modern Israeli Jewish settlement called Ariel.

This book is eye-opening. For instance, I had the impression there were far, far fewer Christians in the Middle East than the 14 million quoted by the author. I did not know the astonishing extent to which Islam has retained the rituals, habits and customs of early Eastern Christianity. I was also unaware that Coptic Christians comprise roughly 20% of the Egyptian population. And I did not know how much early Celtic Christianity was influenced by the Byzantines.

One complaint: I'm afraid sometimes Dalrymple mentions too much and in the heated political and religious atmosphere this is not always a good idea. For instance, was it really wise of the author to have remarked on the fortifications currently being undertaken at Ein Wardo? He writes that he has disguised the identities of some of the people he met for precisely this reason. I hope he's right.

Dalrymple has a well-developed sense of humour. Some of the situations and attitudes he comes across would be funny if they were not so tragic. The author is a scholar and probably the most interesting travel writer to come along in years. This past February I had the good fortune to hear him speak at the Royal Geographical Society on the White Rajahs of India, the subject of his next book. He is as fascinating in person as he is in print, a mixture of Bruce Chatwin, Robert Byron, and Paddy Leigh Fermor -- which in my book is almost as good as one can get!

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading?, December 20, 2001

By 

Duncan C. McDougall (Campton, NH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: From the Holy Mountain: A Journey among the Christians of the Middle East (Paperback)

After sharing tales of our separate tours of Greece, some 35 years apart, I was told by the Chancellor of the University System of New Hampshire, in which I teach, "You must read From the Holy Mountain." I interpreted that as an assignment, and ordered the book. I hereby thank my chancellor for his recommendation.

Not since Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has a travelogue been so much more than a tale about a trip.

From the Holy Mountain is about a Scottish Roman Catholic who, in 1994, decided to retrace the steps taken and chronicled by Fr. John Moschos back in 587 A.D. Dalrymple visits Eastern Orthodox monasteries in the Middle East where, even as late as 1994, local Muslims came to worship, and brought animals to sacrifice to Christian saints whom they believed capable of divine intervention in their lives. The book is about Greece and Turkey and Syria and Lebanon and Israel and Egypt in 587 A.D., in 1994, and episodically in-between.

William Dalrymple is a skilled writer whose prose moves at a fast pace, without sacrificing the detail and anecdotes which lend humor and humanity to his story. Dalrymple has the gift of conversation. His interpersonal encounters keep the story alive.

Dalrymple has a prodigious vocabulary, and visits some obscure places, so the book is best read with a dictionary and a good atlas nearby.

For anyone with an interest in any of the countries mentioned above, an interest in the Byzantine or Ottoman Empires, an interest in early or modern Christianity, in early or modern Islam, or simply with a traveler's soul, From the Holy Mountain is a great book.

P.S. Added in December, 2005: In these troubled times, From the Holy Mountain is especially relevant, as it illustrates how Islam and Christianity can coexist in the Middle East, and sheds light on the problems between Israel and her Lebanese and Palestinian neighbors. Perhaps that should make the book a "required reading" in many courses in the social sciences.

31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent and Insightful, July 30, 2003

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krebsman (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: From the Holy Mountain: A Journey among the Christians of the Middle East (Paperback)

In 587 A.D., a Byzantine monk named John Moschos set off from Mount Athos in Greece, traveling around the eastern Mediterranean to Egypt, collecting anecdotes, aphorisms and legends of the desert monks, or, as he called it, "the wisdom of the desert fathers." The result was a book entitled The Spiritual Meadow, which is still in existence. Using Moschos' book as his guide, author William Dalrymple made the trip himself in 1994, to see what was left of the Christians of the Middle East. Of course, what he was really visiting were the last fading vestiges of Byzantium itself. This fascinating book is a combination of travelogue, history and muckraking journalism. The muckraking journalism part I did not care for (because I don't like feeling helpless), but the historical aspects of the book appealed to me greatly. I knew next to nothing about this region when I started reading this book. It was saddening to read of the slow but inevitable death of the Christian faith in the Middle East. Wars, persecutions, political power games and emigration have virtually assured its extinction, probably within the next 20 years. Most horrifying, to me, was the case of the Palestinian Christians in Israel. The book definitely gave me the impression that the state of Israel is not a benign force.

The real strength of the book is, in addition to his vivid prose, Dalrymple's sense of humor. I chuckled many times throughout the book. Especially amusing to me was the Coptic monks' obsession with poultry breeding. My favorite parts of the book were the historical background on the places he visited and the conclusions Dalrymple was able to draw using his prodigious knowledge of Christian art (he is an authority on Celtic illuminations). Parts of the book I found really thrilling, such as Dalrymple's near-epiphany when he recognizes an ancient picture found in Egypt as being identical to a page of Celtic illumination and is then able to build a case whereby a shipwrecked Coptic monk was the source of all Celtic illuminations. I also felt a chill when Dalrymple realized that the liturgical melody he was hearing was probably the oldest melody in existence.

I would not want to make this trip for myself, because unlike Dalrymple, I don't have a sense of adventure that is willing to deal with gun-toting religious zealots, paranoid citizens of repressive countries and insane local despots in third-world countries. But I suppose someone has to do it, and we are fortunate that that someone was Dalrymple. His literary and historical knowledge served him well on this trip. This is an odd book that caused me to think about a lot of things in a different way, and for that reason I would recommend it. It was an excellent follow-up to Julius Norwich's A Short History of Byzantium.