Customer Reviews

From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

It's a pretty quick read and full of information. Written as a conversation between subjects and the author, he has entertaining and rarely heard of facts to make situations more interesting than they would be in a text book.

The entire book is based on the travels of John Moschos, and Orthodox Christian monk, and a fellow monk friend of his leaving from the area near Constantinople in 587 and travelled around the contemporary Byzantine Empire of the late sixth century. They visit monastaries, holy sites, hermits, stylites, seemingly insane ascetics. One of them who was actually commanded by his bishop to desist in his extreme ways lest he harm himself while being crouched over in a 4" high cage in the blazing sun for years on end.

Dalrymple follows Moschos in his travels except 14 centuries later explaining in detail and with sorrow the extreme changes which have taken place due to Muslim invasion, persecution, and denegration of Christian communities. Interviews and conversations with Armenian, Jacobite, Coptic, Greek, and Antiochian Orthodox (all one Church, just the cultural identity around the parishes) as well as a few Catholics, all but one of whom were Marionites, more than just a few Muslims (almost all of whom are Palestinians), a few Nestorians, and in Alexandria what was left of the Jewish community, too small to even have the minimum amount of males to keep up the synagogue services fill the pages in conjunction with quotes and anticdotes from Moschos.

Some of the stories are extraordinarily tragic such as interviews he has with Armenians and Jacobites concerning the rounds upon rounds of massive holocausts the Muslim Turks have wrought on them and are now denying as "Christian Myths and Propaganda" (such as the 1.5+ million murdered by the Turks in 1915 alone). Dalrymple even has a evening long conversation and stroll through the city with the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem at the time while he is told the tragedies and discrimination the Armenians, Christians in general but especially the Armenians are under going under the Israeli government.

Most of the stories, though, even when they are tragic, are given a humorous spin by the author. He is a master writer and is able to put the most complex of histories into laymen's terms.

Over all it is an excellent read, well worth the read and I highly recommend it. Of the 35 or so books I read a year, this is one of the best, probably in the top three.

I read this book after a brief stay on Mt. Athos and a month-long tour of Istanbul and Turkey. As an American-born, Eastern Orthodox Christian, I was familiar with the general history of Christianity in this part of the world. I did not know or appreciate the extent to which Orthodoxy has dried up or been driven out of Turkey, the Levant and Egypt. It is truly sad. Outside of Greece, the Orthodox world has the feeling of a ghost town.

Dalrymple's book brought a vividness to much that I witnessed firsthand but didnt have the background to appreciate. He is a far more intrepid traveller than I. Highly recommend, it is an enjoyable, entertaining and thought-provoking travelogue for any who are interested in Orthodoxy, the middle east or simply good travel writing.

This is a sad tale. The author retraces the steps of a Christian monk's journey through what is now Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt, which was made more than a century before the Middle East was conquered by Arab armies and permanently lost to Islam. It seeks to remind us that some of these countries made up what was once the heartland and cradle of Christianity with an overwhelmingly Christian population. This book covers many aspects such as history, religion, architecture, politics, ethnography as well as the author's account of the lives of the people he met during his journey. The book's primary focus, is what remains of the Christian Middle East although the lives and beliefs of the Muslims and adherents of other religions such as a strange sect known as the Yezidis, are mentioned in passing.

As the author travels through each place, he refers to the accounts of his predecessor, John Moschos in the Spiritual Meadows, which gave a vivid detail of what life was like for its sixth century inhabitants. For a while we are taken back to a world lost forever. What I find amazing is that although centuries apart, we can perfectly relate to many of their lives and experiences. The author then gives a contemporary description of what he saw in that place and the conversations with the people he met. In many of the places, the large numbers of hermits and pious Christians as well as the quasi-Christian Gnostic sects of Moschos' Middle East are gone for good.

In Istanbul, the once great Christian city of Constantinople, the author meets the remnants of the once large Armenian and Greek communities. The Greeks of Istanbul now number only a few thousand compared to 400,000 in 1923. Although, living in a secular country, they face discrimination and prejudice. Even the Orthodox Church's Patriarchate is constantly under threat from fundamentalist's bombs.

In southeastern Turkey, the author meets with the last of the Turoyo-speaking Orthodox Christians known as Surianis, who speak a language close to the Aramaic spoken by Jesus. Once there were 300 Syrian Orthodox monasteries. Now, most of the monasteries and churches stand empty or have been converted into mosques. A pathetically small handful of old monks continue to maintain the last few functioning monasteries. There will be no replacements for them.

What I found touching were tales related to the author by the Suriani and Armenian survivors of the Turkish massacres who lost their whole families. The Armenians of this region have been completely exterminated or expelled. In the 1915 massacres, the women of Diyabakir were gang-raped and the men had horse-shoes nailed to their feet. Out of a 19th century population of 200,000, the Surianis now number only 900 in their homeland, most of whom are the descendants of those who successfully defended themselves against the Turks and Kurds at a village called Ein Wardo (where they barricaded themselves when they knew what was being done to the Armenians). However, even now killings and kidnappings continue.

In Antioch, once a bastion of Christianity in the 6th century, only a handful of Christians remain. Here, the author relates how an Italian missionary friar continues to secretly baptize Armenians from the mountains who have pretended to be Muslims ever since the 1915 massacres.

In Egypt, the author met the Coptic Christians whose lives and those of their families are constantly under threat by Islamic fundamentalists. Here, hardline Muslim preachers attack Christianity on government TV and Christian schools had to raise wall for protection. So long as only the churches were burned and Christians killed, the government turns a blind eye until when the fundamentalists finally took up arms against them.

Although there are no polemics against Muslims in this book, I am grateful that the author was truthful enough to mention the sufferings of the Middle East Christians. Most politically correct Western authors who have written about the Middle East have displayed a clear Muslim bias and negate all historical facts which portray Islam in a negative light.

Even though this book serves more as a travelogue, I believe people are more important than places. As a Christian living in a Muslim country, I can completely relate to the lives of those whom the author met. Abandoned and ignored by the Christians of the West and knowing that there will be none who would speak up for them (as the Muslims of the world have done for the Palestinians, Bosnians and Kosovar Albanians), the Middle East Christians keep silent on the atrocities committed against them for fear of retribution. America and the West are afraid of offending their Muslim allies even as the Muslims in these Western countries and their apologists are succeeding in their public relations campaign to mislead the general public that Islam is a tolerant religion. Western journalists do not want to cover the stories of Middle East Christians as it is politically incorrect to do so and they may be accused of prejudice against Islam.

One must remember that the South Africans prevailed against apartheid because of world support and media coverage. They knew that the whole world was watching and every atrocity committed got published in the papers which in turn, turned public opinion against the regime, leading to its eventual downfall. Even today, Coptic Christians are regularly being killed by Muslim fundamentalists and yet not only such news are intentionally hidden or downplayed in the media but the same Muslim clerics who say "Islam means peace" used to preach in the same mosques where the faithful attack Christian homes and shops after performing Friday prayers.

For those in the West who are interested in knowing more about Middle Eastern Christians, I suggest that they read this book together with "The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam" and "The Dhimmi" both by Bat Ye'or. An excellent book giving some information on the Jewish communities in Islamic lands is "Jewish Communities in Exotic Places" by Ken Blady.

I must add my compliments to William Dalrymple, who has written an extremely objective and important book on the obstacles Orthodox Christianity has faced in the Middle East. The author, a Roman Catholic from Scotland who has written several books about his experiances in India, is no zealot. He has written a very human story, on occasion very humorous, but ultimately sadly tragic on the pressures and prejudices dedicated Christians have been facing in Turkey, Israel and Egypt over the past century. He is a very good writer and has touched some sensative areas as evidenced by the reviews on this provocative and courageous book. He knows his history and is right on the mark. A must read.

The book is a journal of William Dalrymple's travels to the Christian sites of the Middle East. The "Holy Mountain," refers to Mt. Athos in Greece where William begins his trip. He travels through Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Turkey.

In the 600's a monk named John Moschos (an exact contemporary of Mohammed) traveled throughout the Byzant and wrote a book about it called The Spiritual Meadow. John Moschos documents the beginning of the decline of Byzantine Empire and Byzantine Christianity. William Dalrymple tries to loosely follow the trip that John Moschos took. He sort of documents the final days of the remnants of Byzantine Christianity in the Middle East.

The last Christians in Istanbul (Constantinople) are all leaving. Most of the remaining Greeks in Turkey are elderly. The Copts, as always, are being persecuted and murdered--but persevering. Officially, according to the Turkish government, there were never any Armenians in Turkey. The Turkish government is going around to remote villages and asking peasants if they know of any stonework with Armenian script on it. The government then sends out construction crews that pulverize the stones, then cart them away for disposal. Most of the Maronites have left Lebanon. So have many of the Orthodox. In Israel, the government is essentially doing the same thing to Christians as the Moslem governments are. They are just doing it more moderately to not attract international attention.

He does find some areas where Christianity is very vibrant. I was totally seduced by the Copts. The Syrian Orthodox are quite authentic and close to earl y Christianity. Another interesting thing is that in certain isolated indigenous areas, there is a strong overlap and tolerance and even sharing of religious worship between Moslems and Christians.

The book is chock-full of fascinating observations and anecdotes about religious practice in the region. He really drives home the historic truth that Christianity is a Middle Eastern religion, in opposition to so many who think of it as European. The author's education is in Byzantine Art history, and so he makes many informed observations of artwork he observes on his trip.

What's interesting is that as a travel book, he can be looser than in other forms of writing. He can state his own opinions and impressions without having to substantiate, be objective or have journalistic confirmation, etc.

The Catholic TV channel, EWTN has reported at length on the exodus of Christians from Israel. They fear that the "Holy Land" will become just a museum of Christianity. These reports are consistent with Dalrymple's observations.

As an orthodox Christian who grew up in one of the churches visited in the book (The Coptic Orthodox Church), I can say that this is one of the most moving and important books I have ever read. I applaud the author for bringing to light the truth of what really happened to Eastern Christians. He has successfully refuted Islam's biggest and longest enduring lie: that it has been always tolerant and accepting of Christians in the lands that it conquered. The ravages that Islam has inflicted and continues to inflict on the earliest and purest Christian traditions is a tragedy only exceeded by the indifference the remainder of the world's Christians have had towards this 1400 year long ethnic cleansing. I am glad that we are protecting the Baltic Muslims from an inhumane and hateful Serbian government. Isn't it time to protect the Christians of the Middle East from ongoing slaughters, persecutions, and injustice that has lasted for well over a thousand years? Finally, the book also invites Christians of all denominations to explore their roots and introduces them to a Christian faith inherited from the apostles themselves, a faith that has withstood the test of time.

This is a truly great book in that it shows us how people from different cultures and religions were able to live together in the Middle East in a not so distant past.
It is really sad that this once very culturally rich area of the world is now dominated by hate and fear.
I gave the book only four stars because it lacks a table of contents, there are no maps whatsoever that may follow the author's travels and the pictures included, besides being only a few compared to all the places Dlrymple visited, don't have a coherent order.
Otherwise, the book is a true pleasure.