It may not have been obvious to some from the previous post that 'Prodromou' means 'forerunner'. In Orthodoxy it is the more common title of he who is better known outside Orthodoxy as John the Baptist, whose fuller title is: The Holy Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptizer of our Lord, God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Prodromou is a skete dedicated to this forerunner of our Lord, the one who exhorted us to make the way ready and the path straight, to repent, and to bring forth the fruits of repentance. On the whole, pretty good guidelines for living.
It is not like the previous sketes I have visited in that it is not made up of sub-communities each following their own rule. It simply functions as a monastery with 48 monks, having an abbot and a common rule. It's called a skete, I suppose, because there are only 20 Monasteries on the Holy Mountain, as I indicated in an earlier post, and any other community is a dependency of one of those 20 (and thus is not afforded the distinction of being called a monastery). Prodromou is a dependency of the Great Lavra. It also the only other Romanian community on Mt. Athos besides Lakkou.
Prodromou is the place Fr. Roman came when he visited the Holy Mountain (in the late 1980s?--I'm guessing about when). He mentioned it to me many times over the last six years with great fondness and love--especially his love for the then Abbot, hieromonk Petronios, whose grave I was able to visit Friday evening.
The very last words I heard from Fr. Roman, just a couple days before I left for this trip, was a story about Prodromou. Now I am here, at the site of his stories, experiencing the place he loved and feeling his presence. It is pure joy not only to be reminded of Fr. Roman, but to experience so tangibly the breaking down of the barrier that separates the living from the dead.
I experienced the breaking down of this barrier most vividly on Saturday evening. The schedule for Saturday evening is 4-5:30 Geeat Vespers, 5:30-6 dinner, 6-7 compline with the veneration of relics, including Sts Haralambos, Nilos, Athanosios the Athonite, Great Martyr Barbara, Basil the Great, as well as several others
And on this Saturday, a memorial service for Fr. Roman, served by the abbot, Fr. Staretz Athanosie, followed immediately after Compline. It so happened that a lot of people were present so they were still venerating the relics of the saints (set out on a table in front of the ambo) while Fr. Roman's memorial service was taking place in the middle of the nave--just 15 feet or so from the saints relics.
Some of the relics were beautifully fragment with the aroma of myrrh, which could be smelled not just when nearby but even at some distance. I didn't notice this Friday night, but the fragrance was particularly strong on Saturday evening. So during the memorial there were several times when I received a distinctive scent of the fragrance of myrrh. It was as if the saints were welcoming Fr. Roman into their presence before the King of Kings. Very beautiful indeed.
