By COSTAS KANTOURIS

MOUNT ATHOS, Greece (AP) — The medieval monastery clings almost impossibly to sheer cliffs high above the shimmering turquoise of the Aegean Sea. Rising from the rugged granite rock, its walls enclose a diverse Christian Orthodox community.

The Monastery of Simonos Petra, also known as Simonopetra — or Simon’s Rock — transcends country-based branches of the Christian faith, embracing monks from across the world, including converts from nations where Orthodox Christianity is not the prevailing religion.

The monastery is one of 20 in the autonomous all-male monastic community of Mount Athos, known in Greek as Agion Oros, or Holy Mountain. The peninsula in northern Greece is no stranger to non-Greeks: of the 20 monasteries, one is Russian, one is Bulgarian and one is Serbian, and the presence of monks from other nations is not unusual. But Simonos Petra has the greatest range of nationalities.

Simonopetra, or the Simonos Petra Monastery, home of the all-male autonomous community Agion Oros, or Holy Mountain, stands on the peninsula of Mount Athos in northern Greece, Sunday, April 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Spirituality transcends borders

“Spiritually, there are no borders, because the Holy Mountain has an ecumenical nature” seeking to embrace all, said Archimandrite Eliseos, the abbot of Simonos Petra. This links back to the Byzantine Empire, he explained. “We say that Byzantium was a commonwealth … in which (different) peoples lived together in the same faith.”

The monastery welcomes anyone who would like to visit — provided they are male. In a more than 1,000-year-old tradition, women are banned from the entire peninsula, which is deemed the Virgin Mary’s domain. While men from other faiths can spend a few days at Mount Athos as visitors, only Orthodox men can become monks.

Most of Simonos Petra’s 65 monks hail from European countries where Orthodoxy is the predominant religion, such as Romania, Serbia, Russia, Moldova, Cyprus and Greece. But there are others from China, Germany, Hungary, the United States, Australia, France, Lebanon and Syria.

Founded in the 13th century by Saint Simon the Myrrh-bearer, the seven-story Simonos Petra is considered an audacious marvel of Byzantine architecture. Renowned for its ecclesiastical choir, the monastery has become a symbol of resilience during its long history, recovering from three destructive fires — the most recent in the late 1800s — to embrace global Orthodoxy.

Monks pray during the afternoon liturgy at the Simonopetra, or Simonos Petra Monastery, home of the all-male autonomous community Agion Oros, or Holy Mountain, on the peninsula of Mount Athos in northern Greece, Monday, April 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

A lifelong quest

It was within these walls nearly 20 years ago that Father Isaiah — who like other monks goes by one name — found the answer to a lifelong spiritual quest that had spanned half the globe.

Born in Vietnam to Chinese parents, the now 50-year-old monk grew up in Switzerland, where his family moved when he was a child.

“In this Swiss environment, I was trying to understand what I’m doing, where I’m going, what is the meaning of life,” he explained on a recent morning, standing on a fifth-floor balcony next to a winch used to bring supplies up in wicker baskets from the monastery’s storerooms.

“While searching I found some answers through virtue, and this virtue was connected to the image of Orthodoxy,” he said, his fluent Greek bearing a hint of a foreign accent.

Delving into this new faith, he found relationships based on love and a search for God, he said. His quest led him to an Orthodox monastery in France affiliated with Simonos Petra. That, in turn, led him to Mount Athos in 2006.

“It was in essence a deep searching of spiritual life, which is the answer for the meaning of life,” he said.

Within the monastery, he found a brotherhood of monks from 14 countries. He decided to stay.

“We gather together with some principles, which are those of love towards our neighbor and the love for God,” Isaiah said. In the human and spiritual connections he experienced in Simonos Petras, “I found a deep answer to everything I had been seeking in my youth.”

Father Serafeim lights a candle inside an ossuary where the shelves are full of the skulls of the deceased monks of the Simonopetra, or Simonos Petra Monastery, home of the all-male autonomous community of Agion Oros, or Holy Mountain, on the peninsula of Mount Athos in northern Greece, Monday, April 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Monastery life

Life in the monastery — and across Mount Athos — has changed little in the more than 1,000 years of religious presence there. Days begin long before dawn and are punctuated by prayer services followed by daily tasks, which can include farming, carpentry, winemaking, cooking, art, clerical and ecclesiastical work.

Set among forested slopes, nearly every inch of Simonos Petra’s land is cultivated, with the monks tending to herbs, fruit and vegetables used in the monastery’s kitchen. Electricity comes from sustainable sources such as solar panels.

Father Makarios shows a 1744 map depicting the Simonopetra, or the Simonos Petra Monastery, home of the all-male autonomous community Agion Oros, or Holy Mountain, on the peninsula of Mount Athos in northern Greece, Monday, April 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

Embracing foreigners

Father Serafeim, a Lebanese-Syrian who has lived in the monastery since 2010, said Eliseos and his predecessor as abbot, the Elder Emilianos, had always embraced foreigners.

“You don’t feel that you’re a stranger, you feel from the start that you’re an equal member of the brotherhood,” said Serafeim, who joined the monastic community seven years after he first arrived in Greece to study theology in the northern city of Thessaloniki.

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“This spirit, this open spirit of the elder attracted many souls who were searching for a genuine, emphatic meaning of life,” he said.

One of the oldest non-Greek monks in the monastery is Father Makarios. The Frenchman’s spiritual quest began in May 1968, when as a young man he experienced first-hand the social uprising sparked by student demonstrations in Paris.

His search led him to Mount Athos for the first time in 1975.

“I found this monastery and an embrace,” he said. “I found people who understood and accepted me. They didn’t judge me. It was very easy for me to decide that in the end, after I finish my studies, I will come to Mount Athos, I will try to see if I can become a monk.”

Converting from Catholicism to Orthodoxy on Mount Athos, Makarios is now the monastery’s librarian. He has been living in Simonos Petra for 46 years.

All (men) are welcome

Eliseos, the abbot, stresses his monastery is open to all visitors.

“We say we are open to people with love,” he says. “Someone comes along and wants to visit Mount Athos, he visits it. … Does he want to take it further? We say: ‘Let’s discuss it, with your will’. What does he want? Does he want to participate in this life, does he want to enter into our spirit, embrace our values and our faith? We will accept that. We will not discriminate.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

By BROOKE LEFFERTS

NEW YORK (AP) — Author Mo Willems has sold millions of books and won many awards, but the accolade that means most to him is when a parent says their child read aloud for the first time from one of his books.

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The author, illustrator and animator, 57, is best known for his bestselling picture books like the Caldecott Award-winning “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!” and “Knuffle Bunny.” His latest book, “Will the Pigeon Graduate?” may look like it’s aimed at children, but the titular Pigeon’s fear of failure and an uncertain future are sure to resonate with people of all ages, especially during graduation season.

Willems and his trusty friend The Pigeon (charmingly represented by puppeteer Bradley Freeman Jr.) recently sat down with The Associated Press for an interview about graduating, “Sesame Street,” and the purpose of life. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: How did graduation come to mind for a book topic?

WILLEMS: As I am getting older, which I am, I’m getting into a new part of my life. And I’m wondering, am I equipped to be living in this part of life? And as I ask that question and I don’t have the answers, then I think, well, what is that metaphor that kids are going through? And graduation seemed like the perfect thing. I’m graduating to a new stage in my life, and kids do this all the time. You graduate to tying your shoe. You graduate the first time you read.

THE PIGEON: Like driving a bus.

WILLEMS: Yeah, well, except for driving a bus. That is something you cannot graduate to, if you’re a pigeon, but thank you for contributing to the conversation.

THE PIGEON: Of course.

AP: People may think this is just for graduates, but could it be about any transition?

WILLEMS: I think it’s about asking yourself, “Am I equipped for something that scares me?” The real world is scary. We’re always asking ourselves those questions. And often the answer is … I don’t know. And that’s something that might feel uncomfortable to sit with, but it’s also something that’s very, very exciting. So like right now, I’m doing an interview with you and a giant pigeon. Is this gonna work out? If I’m going to get a little bit philosophical, I would say often we’re trying to give the answers, and I think kids get exhausted from it. I want to give them the questions. I want them to have a chance to live with these questions themselves and work their way into an answer rather than telling them, “Oh, you’ll be fine.”

AP: Mr. Pigeon, what is your favorite part about collaborating on this book?

THE PIGEON: I really like how all of the books are about me. I like how I’m on, like, almost every page. You know, all of these books go through an approval process, and I get sent advanced — I call them screeners, nobody likes when I call them that! — but I get to look at them. And if I’m not on the first page and the last page, it does not get approved.

AP (to Willems): Can you reflect on your nine seasons as a writer and animator on “Sesame Street,” winning six Emmys and helping to develop “Elmo’s World”?

WILLEMS: My love of puppets, my love of sketch comedy, my love of counting to 40 — all these things that I really, really love — came from “Sesame Street”! And when it came time for me to make books, one of the things that I got to do that we didn’t get to do on “Sesame Street” at the time was write about failure. Write about not driving the bus rather than driving the bus. So on one level, it was like going to grad school. I loved it. I learned so much. I met all of these great puppets and puppeteers. On the other, the restrictions of the show allowed me to find my own voice.

AP: Obviously, one of the book’s messages is you have to believe in yourself.

WILLEMS: I don’t know. I’m glad that you think that that’s one of the messages because you brought something to that book. I only write 49% of the book. You put the meaning in the book; if the book is meaningful, that is because you are putting yourself within it. I try not to have messages as much as I can. I really try to live in the question.

AP: Mr. Pigeon, do you think your participation in this makes you a little bit of a philosopher?

THE PIGEON: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of very powerful things going on up here in this little bird brain. There’s a lot of really deep questions, like, I don’t know, can I drive the bus, maybe? You know, wondering maybe if I can stay up late? That would be really great.

WILLEMS: These are all fundamental Greek philosophical questions.

THE PIGEON: And what is the purpose of life?

WILLEMS: What is the purpose of life? Why are we here? Why are people mean? Why are people nice? Can I drive the bus?

THE PIGEON: Can I have a hot dog?

Because I am easily moved by our traditional displays of patriotic fervor, a flag in the breeze, loud fireworks and Air Force One buzzing a stock car race or flying low over Mount Rushmore, I can’t abide our presidential airplane first having belonged to some potentate in Qatar, a country that can’t even settle on a pronunciation of its name.

That is our plane, not the president’s. This is our thing, not a your thing.

We pay for that plane. We fuel it, maintain it and might even indulge in a brief shiver of proprietorship when it flies overhead or lands at our airport, an event I never miss despite my lousy record of missing celestial events.

Don’t take the plane, Donald. It feels wrong. I realize it was made by Boeing, presumably in Seattle, but it was never intended for us. These guys over there who wear robes instead of suits have a different take on aesthetics. That thing might have a statue of Elvis in it, gold bathroom fixtures and thick dark draperies tied off in braided silk that suggest a madam’s place of business.

President Donald Trump said only stupid people would refuse a $400 million gift. He said it was like a favor on a golf course. A player gives you a putt and you accept it with a thank you, Trump said. You’d have to give a putt long enough to circle the Earth to be worth $400 million. Maybe that’s why Trump wins so many club championships and why Vladimir Putin miraculously scores so many goals in a Russian celebrity hockey game. That creep who runs North Korea said his father shot 18 in a round of golf. Pick that one up, boss, it’s good.

This isn’t about a gift or a favor. This is about America retaining some class in the world. Trump is certainly capable of understanding class, but I keep getting the feeling that when he opens his jacket, he has stuff hanging from the liner, watches, coins, maybe a Bible. And it’s all for sale.

Accepting that so-called gift would be like the president of Ford Motor Co. driving a gifted Mercedes or the White House replacing the presidential fleet of Chevrolets, Lincolns and Cadillacs with Audis and Jaguars. Those analogies fall short. Hard to compare anything to a president of the most powerful country in the world preening about getting a $400 million jet from a little country on the other side of the world.

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Somehow Trump rationalizes accepting the plane because Boeing has been slow to deliver a new Air Force One and he won’t use the gift plane when his term is up. He would donate the plane to his future presidential library. Great. I guess there would be a big plane out front of a building where you could go in, buy his stuff and read tweets.

Trump is exhausting. To his credit, he has unbelievable energy for a guy his age. But he either is too easy to flatter, or he demands flattery. Hard to say. Let’s put it this way. Trump is the only president in our lifetime who would actually accept a $400 million gift and think nothing of it. You might turn it around and say only stupid people would accept such a gift.

Certainly, the people around the president have warned him of the security problems. This gift isn’t being offered by Wyoming. That plane could be so loaded with spyware that we might have to spend $400 million just to take it apart and put it back together again.

Qatar is offering that plane to the president, not to the people of the United States.

The people of the United States neither want it or need it.

Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.

By Brett Kelman, KFF Health News

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Federal prosecutors sought a maximum prison sentence of nearly 20 years for the CEO of Pain MD, a company found to have given hundreds of thousands of questionable injections to patients, many reliant on opioids. It would have been among the longest sentences for a health care executive convicted of fraud in recent years.

Instead, he got 18 months.

Michael Kestner, 73, who was convicted of 13 fraud felonies last year, faced at least a decade behind bars based on federal sentencing guidelines. He was granted the substantially lightened sentence due to his age and health Wednesday during a federal court hearing in Nashville.

U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger described Kestner as a “ruthless businessman” who funded a “lavish lifestyle” by turning medical professionals into “puppets” who pressured patients into injections that did not help their pain and sometimes made it worse.

“In the court’s eyes, he knew it was wrong, and he didn’t really care if it was doing anyone any good,” Trauger said.

But Trauger also said she was swayed by defense arguments that Kestner would struggle in federal prison due to his age and medical conditions, including the blood disorder hemochromatosis. Trauger said she had concerns about prison health care after considering about 200 requests for compassionate release in other court cases.

“The medical care at these facilities,” defense attorney Peter Strianse said, “has always been dodgy and suspect.”

Kestner did not speak at the court hearing, other than to detail his medical conditions. He did not respond to questions as he left the courthouse.

Pain MD CEO Michael Kestner leaves a federal courthouse in Nashville, Tennessee, followed by one of his lawyers, after being sentenced to 18 months in federal prison on May 14, 2025. ((Brett Kelman/KFF Health News)/KFF Health News/TNS)

Pain MD ran as many as 20 clinics in Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina throughout much of the 2010s. While many doctors were scaling back their use of prescription painkillers due to the opioid crisis, Pain MD paired opioids with monthly injections into patients’ backs, claiming the shots could ease pain and potentially lessen reliance on pills, according to federal court documents.

During Kestner’s October trial, the Department of Justice proved that the injections were part of a decade-long scheme that defrauded Medicare and other insurance programs of millions of dollars by capitalizing on patients’ dependence on opioids.

The DOJ successfully argued at trial that Pain MD’s “unnecessary and expensive injections” were largely ineffective because they targeted the wrong body part, contained short-lived numbing medications but no steroids, and appeared to be based on test shots given to cadavers — people who felt neither pain nor relief because they were dead. During closing arguments, the DOJ argued Pain MD had turned some patients into “human pin cushions.”

“They were leaned over a table and repeatedly injected in their spine,” federal prosecutor Katherine Payerle said during the May 14 sentencing hearing. “Over and over, month after month, at the direction of Mr. Kestner.”

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At last year’s trial, witnesses testified that Kestner was the driving force behind the injections, which amounted to roughly 700,000 shots over about eight years, with some patients receiving up to 24 at once.

Four former patients testified that they tolerated the shots out of fear that Pain MD otherwise would have cut off their painkiller prescriptions, without which they might have spiraled into withdrawal.

One of those patients, Michelle Shaw, told KFF Health News that the injections sometimes left her in so much pain she had to use a wheelchair. She was outraged by Kestner’s sentence.

“I’m disgusted that all they got was a slap on the wrist as far as I’m concerned,” Shaw said May 14. “I hope karma comes back to him. That he suffers to his last breath.”

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.