Meaningful Volunteer Labor

Abstract

I would like to present a specific kind of social structure – that of a community of about 50 Bulgarians who live in the St. Georgi Zografski monastery in the monastic republic of Mount Athos (Holy Mountain) within the territory of the Republic of Greece. Over the last 2-3 decades the number of inhabitants has increased so as the interest in it. The community is visited, except the pilgrims and volunteer Bulgarian workers, by the people who come for a week every month to donate their labor to the monastery. They are called charisans (volunteers). They come from different parts of Bulgaria to work for free, i.e. to donate their labor to a monastic community. To do so, they have to take a vacation, to pay for a visa and transport, which is not easy for inhabitants of the poorest EU country. Interestingly, their number is increasing from year to year. What causes these people to leave secular life forever or to come regularly with the cost of deprivation? I look for an answer to this question, apart from Orthodox and history evidences, (Metropolitan Hierophaeus (Vlachos) 2011) and through the anthropological method of participation – observation and interviews – conversations with monks, volunteers, pilgrims.

Keywords

• anthropology
• christian anthropology
• aton
• orthodoxy
• monasticism
• volunteering
• the search for meaning