The monks were shocked. "Immodest!" they cried.

"But true to history," replied Ludovico.

"There is truth and truth," the abbot said. But then, remembering the precepts of Anastasius, he refrained from further argument. Instead he praised the build on Cyprian. Here was an example of fitness! Here was the faith that moves mountain--or anything else heavy--made solid and visible!

Ludovico was satisfied. The monks avoided the chapel. The church and the frescoes survived until 1944, when both were destroyed by Allied bombers.

For a while the monastery in Tuscany prospered. By 1520 it had become a kind of early health spa. The great families of Florence sent their degenerate sons there. The young men were fed good plain food and taken out on long runs through the countryside, guarded by muscular monks who made sure they did not escape or succumb to any temptation.

In the middle of the 16th century the monastery attracted the attention of the Inquisition. Ludovico was dead. So was the old abbot, the prudent Eugenius.

The new abbot, Gregory, was not at all prudent and he lacked entirely the wiles of St. Anastasius. He was asked to explain the peculiar ideas of Cyprian. He did so bluntly and truthfully and with holy zeal. Abbot Gregory died in prison. Many of his monks recanted and became Franciscans. A few returned to Greece. "For," as one monk wrote, "better a lean Turk than a lean Jesuit." A few more--including Gregory's successor, Anastasius the Lesser--fied to France and then to the Netherlands. There, in Amsterdam, they established a new monastery and baffled the Dutch, who had no idea what kind of Christians these strange men were.

Unfortunately for the order, the natives of the Netherlands were more interested in money than in good health. The new spa did not prosper, and the Dutch branch of the order lasted only one generation.

In Greece the order of St. Cyprian survived, though it never did especially well. In the early 19th century a number of monks joined the fight for Greek independence. They did this secretly, in the clothes of laymen. But the Turkish government discovered that the monastery was involved in the Greek cause. Troops were sent with orders to massacre the monks and destroy the buildings.

Everyone left except for Abbot Theophilus, an ancient pious man, who waited for the soldiers in his beloved church, at the altar, on his knees.

The soldiers entered, gasping for breath after their long climb up the mountain.

The abbot heard the noise they made. He rose and went around the iconostasis, the screen that hid the altar.

Now the soldiers could see him. They shouted in their own language and flourished their swords. Then they ran toward the venerable abbot, who awaited death calmly, secure in the belief that God and Greece would triumph. For these soldiers were very badly out of shape. In the end the fit would always win, "Two things lead to victory," according to St. Anastasius. "Good training and quick thinking."

Well, reflected Theophilus, the Greeks had one of the two, at least. And the Turks, it was clear, had neither.

The soldiers gasped and staggered. Then they stumbled. Then they fell. They were being wrestled down by invisible presences! In a moment or two the soldiers were all on the floor, tightly held by head locks or half nelsons.

"Glory be to God,"crie Abbot Theophilus. "The victory is always His."

"Amen," said the presences, who remained invisible. They lifted the Turks and carried them off. According to legend, the soldiers were never seen again--not on the mountain of St. Cyprian, anyway. No other soldiers came to bother the monastery. Theophilus lived to be a hundred and thirteen, revered by all.

Toward the end of the 19th century a young shepherd boy came up the mountain. He entered the monastery as a novice. After a month or two he ran away, discouraged by the cold baths and constant exercise. He ended in America. The boy was named Stavros Andropolis. As everyone knows, he became one of the great Hollywood producers. It was due to him that D.W. Griffith made the silent epic Helen of Troy. His company--Hellenic Superbo--was responsible for many of the best early talkies: for example, the comic masterpiece Three Greeks in Brooklyn (1931).

Andropolis was famous for his love of St. Anastasius, whom he quoted often, usually when he was about to make a deal that robbed somebody blind. Although he became rich, he remained--in many ways-a simple shepherd lad, pious after a fashion or maybe the word is superstitious.

When he died in 1937 he left his entire fortune to the Order of St. Cyprian--with one provision. The order must move to California.

The monks, unwilling to pass up a deal this good, complied. In 1939 they packed everything and moved to the suburbs of Los Angeles. There they established El Rancho Cypriano, the famous health resort. They built--as well--the church of St. Anastasius, where they worship to this day, dressed in the costume they adopted after they came to America: grey sweat pants and a grey sweatjacket with a hood. On their feet they wear running shoes, either white or grey. In recent years they have preferred Nikes.