In Greece's secluded Mount Athos are over twenty monasteries, religious retreats and settlements of monks from all over the world. This holy place is forbidden to women, "female animals, eunuchs and all hairless faces," as stated in an edict dating from 1060 AD. Nothing has changed for centuries - monastic life preserves the sacred ways, and visitors find themselves stepping into another time, sequestered from modern civilization.

Monks of Dust (Rizzoli Publications; 80 pages; 75 color & b/w illustrations; $40.00; May 2001) is the story of a photographer's journey to this "spiritual continent." Xavier Zimbardo went to Mount Athos on an artistic stay in 1997, and discovered a dilapidated skete where over 800 Russina monks lived after fleeing persecution in Russia (1915-1920). The last monk died in 1970, and in the late 1990's the skete finally reopened to undergo the process of renovation. It as here that Zimbardo found a horde of tiny passport-sized vintage photos - some surely over 70 years old - of the monks. "I suddenly discovered," writes the author, "that the faces of these monks were made of...dust! The slightest breath could have blown them to smithereens." He went to work, his camera capturing the vestiges of these images - memories of memories.

Here then are the eerie, moving remains of the past, a rare glimpse of the monks who lived in solitude and carried on ancient traditions of faith. Time stops for us to see "that poignant moment between what they have been and what they will be, one of the great themes of religious art through the centuries," writes Barry Unsorth in the Introduction. Decay acts as metaphor for our inevitable decrepitude - but the spirit is intact, seen through the dusty granules and faded images. A thumbnail index and Zimbardo's captions give the reader insight into the holy life and history of the Russian monks.

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