Athos
Athos

The Sounds of the Holy Moun

Author(s): Aleksander, Wojciech Mikołajczak, Rafał Dymczyk
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Theology and Religion, Religion and science
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: Holy Mount Athos; Orthodox; Hesychasm; sense of hearing; Actor Theory NetWork (ANT); affective turn
Summary/Abstract: The inquiries presented in this monograph cover the audible dimension of the religious and cultural heritage created by the Orthodox monastic communities that have existed for a thousand years on the Holy Mount Athos in Greece. The research shows the scope and method of using the sense of hearing and sounds as creators and receptors of material and spiritual reality, manifested in liturgical singing, art, as well as in mysticism, prayer and the everyday way of life of monks. It is also about the specificity of the church architecture, subordinated to the acoustics of the voice. The scale of the involvement of hearing in the creation and interpretation of Athos reality is determined by two factors – the extraction of sounds from the creations of nature, the human vocal apparatus and the works of human hands. As a result of the auditory integration of the world of sounds, the acoustic landscape of the Holy Mountain is created. It is an expression of the emotive perception of reality, which thus acquires a deeply human dimension. It fits in with the metaphysical perspective of experiencing God in sonic hierophany. The use of the sense of hearing in this experiencing the Athos sacrum is described in the following chapters, taking into account 5 aspects of the sound landscape of the Holy Mountain: (1) the specificity of the auditory experience of the sacred, (2) the characteristics of silence as a space of hesychasm, (3) voices of nature, (4) sounds produced in the space of culture, (5) liturgical singing. 

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