Moscow, April 27, 2017
Photo: vimaorthodoxias.gr Archimandrite Gregory (Zumis) has published an article dedicated to the modern state of Greece and Mt. Athos, the main points of which are published on AgionOros.
According to the abbot, the current authorities of Greece “cannot be called real rulers (incidentally, like the previous governments of post-war Greece, which were no better).” A right and proper government should not establish the same taxes for all citizens and regions of a country, Fr. Gregory writes.
“We live on the Holy Mountain. Some of the monasteries on this sacred land have inherited fertile plains, but others—arid and barren mountain slopes. Thus, some of the monasteries (thank God!) can provide for themselves, but others struggle to survive, relying on people’s charity.”
The Holy Mountain has survived for 1,000 years thanks to the reason and care of the governing authorities who have sacrificed many interests to preserve the holy site, the archimandrite writes.
The state helps even the smallest administrative units, but for each of the separate monastic administrative units on the mountain there is no help. “Even if they view us as prisoners, it should be taken into account that we need water, and roads, and light, and food. And we have natural disasters and cataclysmic weather, leaving nothing behind,” Fr. Gregory underlined.
“Miserable Greece was counting on a restored Holy Mount Athos to promote the godless European Union,” he lamented.
The authorities did not take into account all the necessary annual upkeep that comes from the monastic buildings’ exposure to the sea and the harsh weather conditions, he writes.
“Today even fishermen have sonar to see where there’s fish and where there’s not. If, dear ministers, you have not eyes to identify which areas to harvest, and which not—take the sonar, so your net would be full, and we would not be destroyed,” the abbot concluded.
