1678) Mount Athos - The Forgotten World

5) Fill in the blanks according to your understanding:

This Byzantine cross marks the border between Mount Athos and the 21st century. The monks come, as they always have, for the beauty, the tranquility and the isolation. But most of all for this.

Father Iakovos is one of the few Americans on the mountain; he's been here more than half his life. "You can see, the words that we're saying in today's liturgy, are the same words that Christ was saying, the same words that saints from the first century, the second century, the third century, the fourth century," And nothing has changed in orthodoxy since then - it's the only ___________________ of Christianity that can make that claim.
Father Elisaios is the Abbot, the top man at Simonospetras, one of 20 monasteries. It was Elisaios who invited us here - and never let us forget what a rare privilege it was.
“It happened once in 1981. The last time you invited a television crew here was in 1981. Correct!. We weren't going to invite you but your persistence convinced us to open the door,"

The door he opened revealed the wonder that is Simonospetras, which fits like a ____________ on top of a rock 800 feet above the Aegean. It was built the 14th century and the monks will tell you it must be considered a miracle that it hasn't fallen into the sea. There are 20 monasteries on Mount Athos. Some are like medieval fortresses; others are so large they __________________ small cities. They rise from virgin forests and line the coast, shrouded in _____________. There's nothing on this 130-square mile peninsula other than monasteries and monks. Nothing.

We expected Mount Athos to be a quiet place, but we couldn't have imagined how quiet until we were _________ _____ here. The silence is only broken by the occasional tapping on a chiseled piece of chestnut. It is a call to prayer and started being used here before there were bells. "The monks here have one goal, and that is how they can get closer to God," Father Serapion wanted us to understand that there is no place on Earth closer to heaven than Mount Athos. "Every day a thousand divine liturgies are celebrated on the peninsula. It's unique in the world and in the Orthodox church," “Exactly makes it unique? It's the absolute way of life of the monks."

It's a Spartan way of life, but all the monks we talked to said they never want to leave, not even for a day, so they try to be self-sufficient - they grow their own fruit and vegetables, and do their own ____________________. And when they get sick, there's an in-monastery doctor, Father Ermolaos, who is not very busy because the monks are in excellent shape: there's remarkably little cancer, virtually no heart disease or Alzheimer's. They must be doing something right, in addition to drinking wine at nine in the morning. They eat two meals a day. That is what they call the "first meal", which lasts 10 minutes; the "second meal", which lasts 10 minutes. There's no meat and no dinner table conversation - the only sound, a monk reading from sacred texts.

We were surprised by how busy the monks are - when they're not praying, they're working.
Father Thedosios, born a Lutheran in Germany, is a mechanical wizard, who has given the monastery continuous electricity and occasional hot water. "Many Christians in the world, they are looking for the original church, you know, for the ancient church." Do you think this is the closest to the original church? "Yes. When you come to orthodoxy, you will see, it has everything you ever sought for." Father Iakovos came here 25 years ago from Winthrop, Massachusetts.
He took us on a tour of the monastery. "It _______________ enough to build a monastery on top of the rock today, but how did they do it in the 13th century?" "You know that's something which even modern day architects are amazed at. When the workers came and saw the site where Saint Simon, the founder of our monastery wanted to build, they looked at him and said ...'Are you crazy?' Of course. So being crazy was not a bad thing, Not at all. Back then how did you get the stuff up here? We had ___________________.”