Christian communities - in Greece and Turkey

Available for over a year

Owen Bennett Jones introduces two stories of Christian identity and life in small communities built on faith. Malcolm Billings is on a personal pilgrimage to the world-famous - and all-male - Greek Orthodox enclave on the peninsula of Mount Athos. He finds an unspoiled landscape and a calmly measured rhythm to life, as well as the unexpected detail; even monasteries, it seems, occasionally resort to buying frozen food from a corner shop these days. In southeastern Turkey, Diana Darke learns why the long-scattered world community of Syriacs is beginning to regroup and return to their long-derelict homes and churches in the Tur Abdin region. In 1915 many of their number were massacred, but there's a resurgent sense of pride and an ongoing process of reclamation., Producer: Polly Hope Photo: Students from a priestly school walk in Karyes, the seat of the clerical and secular administration of the Mount Athos monastic state, on October 9, 2011. (SAKIS MITROLIDIS/AFP/Getty Images)