"Holy mountain moves to Helsinki", was the headline of a full-page story in the Greek newspaper Kathimerini on March 25th, 2006.

The report that art treasures of the monastic community of Mount Athos are put on display at the Tennis Palace Art Museum in Helsinki was big news in Greece as well.

Art from Mount Athos was not even lent to the exhibition set up for the Athens Olympics, nor was the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York allowed access to anything from Mount Athos in its extensive exhibition of Byzantine art.

So how did the Helsinki Museum of Art manage to get this exhibition?
"I don’t know", shrugs museum director Berndt Arell.

Others involved in the exhibition project speak about Arell’s tenacity, as well as the confidence that he has managed to inspire among the monks at the Mount Athos monasteries.

Arell also feels that the fact that Finland is partially an Orthodox country may have something to do with it. "Among EU member states, the Orthodox Church has an official status only in Greece, Cyprus, and Finland", he says.

"Perhaps this can also be seen as gratitude for the fact that the EU has provided funding for the restoration of the monasteries", ponders Ralf Forsström, designer of the exhibition architecture.

"Our exhibition does not show ‘treasures’, but rather the spiritual life of the monasteries of Mount Athos", Berndt Arell explains.

The exhibition, Athos - Monastic Life on the Holy Mountain, opens in August, and will comprise about 500 objects - icons, manuscripts, sacral objects, textiles, jewellery, crosses, paintings, and photographs. The oldest icons are more than 1,000 years old.

"Although the objects are of immeasurable value, we are not displaying 'valuable' objects, but rather sacred ones", Arell says.

Ralf Forsström says that there are parallels between the architecture of the exhibition and monastery architecture.

Mouny Athos is an Orthodox monastic republic located in the province of Macedonia in the north of Greece. About 2,000 monks live in the 20 monasteries in the area, the oldest of which was founded in 963.

The exhibition will contain objects from nine monasteries and 15 European museums. "All of the objects were originally from Mount Athos. Many of them have been sent to Russia as expressions of gratitude for support from the Tsar", Arell says.

He adds that Mount Athos is the holiest place in the Orthodox world.