[12Cickprior]

I didn't know about Mercedes Benz's on the Holy Mountain, but life goes on. There are also cigarettes, radios, tv's (or so I've heard from a monk), and other such things. But the life of the Athonites goes on, and saints are still produced there. And the majority of the roads were built to aid in construction and to ease the burden of supplying the monasteries. Keep in mind that the average monk on the Holy Mountain comes from much different circumstances now than those fifty years ago. Our generation is physically soft and weak in comparison to the strugglers of times past... Elder Aemilianos, Elder Paisios, and others talked about this a bit. The essence must remain the same, but sometimes we need to take account of the weakness of modern man when considering things like transportation, food, etc.