NEKTARIN finds it hard to live in Sofia. "People are just chasing the wind here," he told me. "They create rules and laws and then become the slaves of those rules and laws. It's a miserable place, and it makes me depressed." As we sat in an outdoor cafe, a car alarm began its noisy wailing nearby and Nektarin grimaced with disgust, "This city!" he muttered angrily.

After almost seven years of comparative isolation at Glozhen monastery on a cliff top in the Rhodope Mountains, his reaction to life in a bustling city is unsurprising and, as he began to describe his formative years of monkhood, the look of fatigue faded from his face.

He grew up in an unloving, abusive family and at an early age realised that there must be a better world of love and freedom, yet it was not until his teens that he discovered Orthodox Christianity and then at 17 began his life at Glozhen monastery.

Now 23, he has developed his own strong understanding of religion through the years spent close to the nature at Glozhen and six months at Gigginsky monastery, where the monks live a very closed life. "I learnt a lot from being at Gigginsky," he said. "It was the period when I became fully absorbed in religion, but the monks are extremely isolated there - monkhood requires such a closed way of life, but I feel that's not necessary for me."

Nektarin explained that being cut off from the outside world can lead to monks becoming more like sheep or slaves. "To love everybody doesn't mean you have to spend your life on your knees," he said.

Asked if he had ever had any doubts about his chosen path, he answered that he has always been absolutely sure that it is right for him. "It appears that it doesn't matter whether you're a monk or not," he said, "because everybody has God's voice inside them. That doesn't mean that everyone can become a monk, but everybody's purpose is to find the truth of life, and part of that truth is to love everyone."

It was at Glozhen that he developed most of his ideas and came to the understanding that rather than being separate entities, all natural objects are interconnected and that God consists of many different worlds and universes of which we are a part.

"To reach this way of thinking you have to lose yourself," he said. "Orthodox Christianity also teaches losing the self, but after you've done this you become dependent on your superiors, like a puppet. Losing yourself is freedom from your ego, and nothing in nature has an ego - that's why hermits retire into nature."

I asked if he'd ever considered becoming a hermit, and Nectarin replied that hiding in the mountains does not mean that you'll be saved. "You have to be a hermit in your heart first," he explained, "and you need to spend time in a monastery to learn discipline and the way of understanding."

He is currently studying at the Orthodox seminary in Sofia and will return to Glozhen monastery in August. "I can't wait to get back," he told me. "My future is in Glozhen and beyond, it's a door to other spiritual worlds, and it's a very holy place for me because everyone I know is connected to it somehow. Even the kitchen is sacred because that's where I always gather with friends." Over the years, he made numerous friends from the many visitors to Glozhen and, he said, his heart is like a skyscraper where they all live. "Whenever I want I can go in and visit them," he laughed.

He feels there is some prejudice in the Orthodox religion because people from the secular world are thought to be harmful to a monk's spiritual development. "I don't agree,"said Nektarin. "Actually people from the outside world can greatly enrich your life."

His advice to anyone considering a life of monkhood is to search deep inside themselves. "Everything is within us," he said. "You just have to stop and look into yourself, and believe in yourself and your friends."