That morning, as every day for the past eight years, the monk Hieronymus got up at three in the early dawn for matins. After yesterday’s devastation, the wind had died down and the serene monk thought he could finish painting the small veranda of the monastery that he had started yesterday, before the sudden storm interrupted him. Then, quite suddenly, around four in the afternoon, the wind began to blow so strongly that the poor man barely managed to stand upright. The seagulls, which until a little while ago were flying and diving into the turquoise waters while loudly cawing, abruptly disappeared. The sky darkened as if it was drowning, and then the wind howled like a hungry wolf, stirring and roughening the sea, which in turn began like a raging fury to furiously slap every rock it saw ahead.
The monk hurriedly gathered the bucket with the white paint and the brush and entered the chapel, while the first heavy tears of the sky fell on his black robe and managed to soak it. The storm lasted quite a while and Hieronymus thought that perhaps the afternoon visitors and faithful who wanted to venerate the holy icon of the Virgin of Chozoviotissa might not appear. He felt particularly lucky to serve God in this monastery on Amorgos, one of the most beautiful Cycladic islands of Greece. He was approaching twenty-nine and had been living the monastic life since he was eighteen, when he decided after high school to become a monk, despite his family’s objections, who could not understand what had led their only son to make this decision so suddenly.
However, for the young Achilles – that was his real name – no decision had been made suddenly or lightly. Since he was a small child, he was fascinated every time he went to church and heard the psalms. For some strange reason, he felt safe inside there. In the outside world, people frightened him and conversations with his friends, mainly about women, made him feel awkward. That summer, when the eighteen-year-old young man visited Mount Athos for the first time and stayed in a beautiful monastery for a whole month, he had already decided: he would follow the priestly life. And that is what he did.