Try to imagine spending your whole life without ever seeing or interacting with the opposite gender.
While this might sound like an impossible or even grim scenario to some, for Mihailio Totolos, it was his reality, and he sadly did not know any different.
It is believed that although he was born in 1856, he never knew his mother.
His mother passed away shortly after giving birth to him, leaving him without any immediate family from the very beginning.
During his years living in the monastery, he was required to follow the strict set of rules enforced there.
One of the most important of these rules was that women were not allowed on the monastery grounds under any circumstances.
This meant that he went through his entire life without actually seeing a woman face-to-face.
Instead, his understanding came only from books and the stories he heard from others.
Seemingly uninterested in what might have been outside the monastery walls, Tolotos continued his life in the same way until 1938, when he passed away at the age of 82.
After his death, the monks who had shared their lives with him on Mount Athos arranged a special funeral in his honor.
News of Tolotos’ death was later featured in a newspaper article, which pointed out that not only had he never seen a woman, but he had also gone through 82 years without experiencing many other things that were common in the world.
Today, in an age of rapid digital change and modern technology, it is unlikely that the world will ever see another person like Mihailio Tolotos again.
What an incredible and strange thought.
