Orthodox World News

On Monday night a resplendent yacht docked at the watery entrance to the world’s only monastic republic. A middle-aged man, followed by two bodyguards, stepped on to the jetty of the peninsula in northern Greece and into the “state” known variously as Mount Athos or the Holy Mount.

A few monks in black robes and pillar-box hats stood waiting, but, under orders to keep the identity of this particular pilgrim secret, it was a reception without fanfare. Their guest, clean-shaven in contrast to the bearded clerics, was Prince Charles, on his third clandestine retreat to Athos in the past 12 months.

According to friends and associates of the prince, the future head of the Church of England has become enamoured of the Orthodox faith to the point that he has adorned a section of his home at Highgrove with prized Byzantine icons.

“There is no question that the British royal is Orthodox in his heart,” confided one Athonite monk.

For years Charles, who assumes the title of Defender of the Faith when he becomes king, has displayed an unprecedented interest in denominations as divergent as Islam and Buddhism.

His regular meetings with Ephraim, the abbot of Vatopedion, his adopted monastery on the Mount, have helped fuel speculation that the prince is being personally instructed in eastern Christianity, even if it is fiercely denied by courtiers.

Wtnesses say that when the prince arrived in Athos days after the death of Princess Diana almost seven years ago, it was Ephraim who induced him to join the faith. Closeted in a chamber alone with the abbot, Charles is believed to have made a “spiritual commitment” to Christian Orthodoxy.

“One of Charles’s aunts, the Grand Duchess Eugenia, was proclaimed an Orthodox saint after she was murdered in Moscow where she had established a monastery. His paternal grandmother, Aliki [Alice], was a nun for most of her life. She spoke very good Greek and in her later years, when she came to live in London, she kept an Orthodox chapel in Buckingham Palace,” said Archbishop Grigorios of Thyateira, who heads the Orthodox community on Britain. “Aliki was a very powerful woman whom I’m sure had a very strong influence on Charles in his early years.”

Prince Philip, his Corfu-born father who like Charles is an honorary member of the Friends of Mount Athos, had to switch to Anglicanism from Greek Orthodoxy to marry the Queen.

“If his Orthodox beliefs were ever to be made official, people would find it very troubling,” said His Beatitude, Anthimos, the Bishop of Alexandroupolis.

Officially, St James’s Palace says the prince’s trips to the car-free Mount are a purely “personal affair”.

“He goes there as a private individual, not in his official capacity as the Prince of Wales,” said Kirstine Clark, a spokeswoman at the palace. “Visits are very much in his private time, so we don’t issue details. What I can say is that he is interested in the architecture and spirituality of Mount Athos.’’

But, perhaps because he stands to become the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Charles is also unusually sensitive about his trips to the Mount. His visits have been shrouded in secrecy.

Attending the opening of the newly refurbished monastery of Vatopedion last year, which he helped to restore with money from the auction of his watercolours, the prince said he hoped each of the Mount’s 23 monasteries would soon regain their former splendour. He would, he said, work hard to ensure that happened.