Annie Agnone: America by Night

Annie Agnone: America by Night

Photograph by Annie Agnone

Annie Agnone's America by Night project, funded by National Geographic, explores the complex relationship between Americans and nighttime. It is an account—told through writing, photographs, and audio—of the people and places encountered on a driving tour of the United States, set entirely at night.

“Just after midnight, the pilgrims rise and dress. They walk across the monastery's lighted courtyard, toward the main chapel and the sounds of bells and chanting voices.

“Inside the chapel it is dark. The congregation stands and sits and bows. Friends whisper to one another in English and Greek. A man named Christos lights prayer candles, a gentle breeze ruffling their flames.

"The monks who live here have long beards and sit in high-backed chairs surrounding the altar. They move often, to visit the icons hung around the nave, crossing themselves and leaning forward to kiss the images. Services begin at 1 a.m., but the monks, I learn, have already been awake for hours.

“Saint Anthony's Greek Orthodox Monastery was founded in Florence, Arizona, in 1995. Of the 21 monastic communities under the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, Saint Anthony's is the largest. It’s an oasis of fat palms and tall pines—fountains and grass and terracotta roofs among miles of sand, saguaro, and mesquite. Parakeets chirp in their cages and cats stroll the winding walkways lined with snapdragons, roses, and sunflowers.

“The afternoon before the service I met with Father Paisios, the monastery's abbot. He has dark brown eyes and a long gray beard. Night, he explained, is the highlight of a monastic's 24-hour day. It is a time of solitude and few distractions, an eight-hour span when monks are not expected to work. And so they rise, three hours after going to bed, to seize that moment of uninterrupted prayer before services begin. They remain in their cells. They find a quiet bench in a stand of cypress. They walk away from the monastery's lights and perfumed air, out into the star-crusted desert night, out into a different kind of oasis.”