A hieromonk who received his calling as a child — and a Byzantine chant that echoes unchanged through the centuries.
Testimony · Nea Skiti, Mount Athos
At Nea Skiti on Mount Athos, Elder Damaskinos keeps alive the Byzantine chant tradition — the way it has been sung on Athos for a thousand years.
He received his calling as a young child. As he recounts, at the age of thirteen, one Sunday in church, as he listened to the Gospel, in the face of the priest he saw the very face of Christ — the moment that left no doubt about his path.
He feels blessed, he says, for the gift of his voice: to be able to praise God in chant is among the most blessed things, both for himself and for those who hear.
A hieromonk at Nea Skiti on Mount Athos, a noted cantor of the Byzantine musical tradition. He received his monastic calling as a child.
A skete of Saint Paul’s Monastery, on the southwestern side of Athos, with huts and cells where monks live under its spiritual jurisdiction.