The Orthodox monastery of St John the Baptist – prodromos or forerunner – is perched half-way up an enormous mountain, with glorious views over the plain of Thessaly in central Greece. A small international community of nuns came here from Athens at the turn of the millennium to inherit a concrete shell, a building begun but soon abandoned by monks from Mt. Athos in the mid-1980s. Relying largely on their own labour and not inconsiderable energy, these indomitable women have managed to finish the main monastery building as well as constructing from scratch a little church next door. They run a dairy farm, grow vegetables, restore icons, produce mosaics and play host to a growing number of guests and pilgrims. At the end of a long winding road, as well-tilled fields give way to rock and scrubby wilderness, it comes as a total surprise to discover this tranquil spot almost hanging over the edge of the valley. The cluster of buildings is a triumph of architectural ingenuity and artistic harmony. Brilliant white stuccoed walls contrast with the red tiles of the roof – a perfect setting for the richly gilded icons that decorate the walls of the church. Despite its remote location, the monastery acts as a magnet for local people who, when they are not inspecting the cheese and pickles in the monastic shop, attend long and beautiful liturgies that keep them in touch with the formative rhythms of faith.

The monastery is beautiful in its very simplicity. This is no magnificent showpiece, a cathedral dominating the landscape, but a functional piece of architecture with a specific purpose, to provide shelter and sanctuary for community and worshippers. Its beauty comes from the truthfulness with which this purpose is met. The very lack of pretence in the building betrays an aesthetic honesty that builds up a sense of the harmony and wholeness of the monastic life. The nuns do not spend their day immersed in the theology of the Greek Fathers and then, reluctantly, get on with the more prosaic business of making ends meet and keeping body and soul together. More exactly, they are involved in a regular round of activities – from singing in choir to milking the cows. It is that combination of the prayerful and the practical, the work that goes on in church and farm, which gives shape to their lives and links them to the deeper rhythms of the world around them. The place seems to grow out of the land, not overcome or suppress it. It witnesses to the process by which human beings engage with the world of their experience and shape it imaginatively to meet their deepest needs and desires.