Every monastery is still going strong and that there are indeed more monks on the Mountain than there have been for a century

From Trying to Please by John Julius Norwich.  Page 254.

But one soon learns the ways of the Mountain, and when one has done so the rewards are immense. I shall never forget the mornings walking through those forests or striding along those silent, lonely beaches; the excitement of arriving at an unknown monastery just before sunset (at which moment the gates are locked), speculating on the warmth of the welcome that awaited us; the evenings on those vertiginous balconies, ouzo in hand, gazing out over the sea and holding one old monk after another spellbound by comparing the populations of London and Paris, Tokyo, and New York; or the nights when we crossed a moonlit courtyard to the katholikon and listened, leaning back in our stalls, while dark and shrouded figures exchanged the droning supplications of their liturgy back and forth across the echoing church, and the frescoed saints glowed and glimmered in the candlelight. 

 

Yet always, at the back of our minds, was anxiety about the state of the Holy Mountain itself. Time and again we would ask the same questions, and receive what were essentially the same answers:

“How many monks was this monastery built for?” 

 

“Two hundred and fifty.” 

 

“How many does it have today?” 

 

“Eleven.” 

 

“How old is the youngest?” 

 

“Seventy-four.” 

 

Clearly, we thought, the end was near.  Athos had been in existence for well over a thousand years, yet it seemed impossible that it should now survive our own lifetimes. Occasionally we voiced our fears—and were surprised that when we did so no monk ever showed a trace of anxiety. “God will provide,” they would say with a shrug. And how right they were; for that was forty-five years ago, and I am told that today every monastery is still going strong and that there are indeed more monks on the Mountain than there have been for a century.