Paganopoulos, Michelangelo (2021) Contested Authenticity: anthropological perspectives of pilgrimage tourism on Mount Athos. Religions, 12 (4). ISSN 2077-1444 (Online) (doi:10.3390/rel12040229)

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Abstract

This paper investigates the evolution of customer service in the pilgrimage tourist industry, focusing on Mount Athos. In doing so, it empirically deconstructs the dialectics of the synthesis of “authentic experience” between “pilgrims” and “tourists” via a set of internal and external reciprocal exchanges that take place between monks and visitors in two rival neighboring monasteries. The paper shows how the traditional value of hospitality is being reinvented and reappropriated according to the personalized needs of the market of faith. In this context, the paper shows how traditional monastic roles, such as those of the guest-master and the sacristan, have been reinvented, along with traditional practices such as that of confession, within the wider turn to relational subjectivity and interest in spirituality. Following this, the material illustrates how counter claims to “authenticity” emerge as an arena of reinvention and contestation out of the competition between rival groups of monks and their followers, arguing that pilgrimage on Athos requires from visitors their full commitment and active involvement in their role as “pilgrims”. The claim to “authenticity” is a matter of identity and the means through which a visitor is transformed from a passive “tourist” to an active “pilgrim”.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This article belongs to the Special Issue Sacred Sites, Rituals, and Performances: New Perspective for Religious Tourism Development.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	authenticity, spirituality, Mount Athos, hospitality, pilgrimage tourism
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Information & Library Services
Last Modified:	13 Mar 2026 15:15
URI:	https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/52657

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