UNITED KINGDOM SUMMER PEARLS: London's architectural gems along the banks of the Thames
MUSIC: Europe's best pop and rock gatherings
BAGPIPES: The plaintive sounds of Scotland
SUBMARIUM: Journey to the bottom of the sea FESTIVALS: Fun in the sun in West Belfast
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FRANCE and SWITZERLAND VULCANIA: Blow your top at France's volcano park
ART: Berthe Morisot, the unknown Impressionist
FESTIVALS: Aix-en-Provence has it all
ART: The Barbizon School painters come to life
ART: Take a stroll through medieval gardens of delight
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SPAIN, PORTUGAL, ITALY and GREECE SALAMANCA: The city splashes out on culture
MUSIC: God's rock stars: the singing Greek monks
FOOD: Italy's unusual culinary delights
FILM: Great outdoor viewing in Rome
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GERMANY and BENELUX HORTICULTURE: The world blossoms at Floriade
BRUGGE: Belgium's second city shines
ART: Berlin's homage to multiculturalism ART: The best of the world's artists on show at Documenta 11
DANCE: Czech twin ballerinos steal the show in Hamburg MORE ..
CENTRAL and EASTERN EUROPE ART: Yugoslavia's modern art museum is back
ART: A retrospective of Samizdat art and writing from the Communist bloc
GRAZ: Austria's little-known city of culture
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THE NORDIC REGION DESIGN: Denmark celebrates Arne Jacobsen
MUSEUM: Get a blast from the past at Stalin World
STOCKHOLM: Welcome to the Venice of the North
MUSIC: Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes on tour MORE ..
PLUS LISTINGS: Other things to see and do in each region
Greece's top religious rock group goes the (un)Orthodox Route
Most Greek Orthodox clerics call it a shameful act, but the black-clad rock-'n'-roll band Eleftheroi (the Free) is taking the country's pop charts by storm. Over the past two years, the group has sold more than 110,000 copies of their first two CDs; its debut release was the fourth-biggest selling record ever in Greece. Eleftheroi's current CD reached No. 2 on the Greek charts when it was released in March, and this month the band begins a U.S. tour. Religious disapproval of the band is odd given that its 15 members are Orthodox monks, and their music lashes out against the dangers of drugs, materialism, technology and globalization. "Our borders you're erasing/ What sort of a fascist regime are you enforcing?" are the lyrics to one hit song. "We don't claim to be professional musicians," says Father Nektarios Moulatsiotis, the band's manager and spiritual leader. "We're mission-aries. And modern times call for modern methods."
The band will put on three fund-raising performances — in New York, Boston and Chicago — to protest the death penalty in the U.S. In July, the monks kick off their first summer tour in Greece, starring in a string of charity concerts on the mainland and the island of Rhodes before returning in September to their monastery. The teetotal monks deejay on Athen's hottest teenage radio station and even appear on raunchy late-night talk shows — all as part of their "mission to mix with the youth," in the words of Father Nektarios.
Though Nektarios says Archbishop Christodoulos, the reform-minded leader of the Greek Church, has given the rock-'n'-roll missionaries his blessing, other prelates describe Eleftheroi as "utterly unseemly" and the monks' stardom as "incompatible with the humble dignity of the priest-hood." "It's stuffy attitudes like these that distanced the youth from the Church in the first place," huffs Nektarios, who likes handing out glossy icons of Jesus and autographed pictures of the band to young fans. "We'll continue our mission, for we have neither sinned nor breached any code of monastic life." No vows of silence for these monks.
Eleftheroi's new CD is By Your Side. • Performances:
in Komitini, northern Greece, Aug. 18; during a cruiseship
concert in the Corinthian Gulf on Jul. 20; on the island
of Rhodes, Sept. 1 • Website:www.freemonks.gr
