At Agios Oros they found refuge wounded Ukrainians soldiers looking for physical and mental peace after the hell of war they have been experiencing for about 3 years.

The troopsaged with visible signs of war either physically, one with a scar on his head, another with both legs amputated above the knee or mentally, started by coach from the Ukrainian city of Lviv and traveling a distance of 1000km they arrived at a monastery built in a rock on the mountainous peninsula of Athos in the hope of escaping their haunting memories of the battlefield.

During their four-day stay, according to Reutersthe soldiers worshiped in several of the monasteries located on the slopes of Mount Athos.

“Many soldiers are suffering from the events that took place in the last three years. Many of them are suffering from different diseases – they are injured and we need to rehabilitate them,” said Father Mykhailo Pasirskyi, a Ukrainian Orthodox priest who accompanied the men on their journey.

22-year-old Ivan Kovalyk is one of the soldiers who will bear the scars of war on his body for the rest of his life after losing both his legs while on the front lines until September 2023.

“Of course it helped a lot, because it helped me de-stress,” he said of his visit to Mount Athos, which he plans to repeat.

“There was always support from relatives, friends, brothers, support from the state, without that it wouldn’t have been possible,” he said.

“We already see that these five days spent on the Athos peninsula replace at least one year of rehabilitation in Ukraine, in hospitals or other medical centers,” said Orest Kavetskyi, a Lviv regional official who helped organize the trip.

“When I visited Athos, I felt God’s grace, God’s blessing, his greatness” he concluded.