Mt. Athos, July 22, 2024
Photo: ekklisiaonline.gr
Greek police are reportedly preparing to storm Esphigmenou Monastery on Mt. Athos to evict its 118 resident monks.
Esphigmenou has been in schism from the rest of the Holy Mountain, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the rest of the Orthodox World for many years, in protest against the ecumenistic activity of the Patriarch of Constantinople with the Catholic Church and other bodies.
While the Athonite monasteries have protested such activity by ceasing to commemorate the Patriarch in the Divine services several times in recent decades, the Esphigmenou brotherhood has gone further by joining a schismatic, Old Calendarist jurisdiction.
The constitution and statutes of the Holy Mountain prohibit monastic cohabitation with the heterodox or schismatics, thus there have been several attempts to evict the monks, including a 2013 incident in which Abbot Methodios and other monks threw Molotov cocktails at the police.
The abbot and another monk initially received 20-year sentences in 2017, with 6 others receiving sentences of 10 years and 4 months, though those sentences were reduced to 17 years and 9 years and 5 months respectively in 2019, and again to 5.5 years and 2 years and 9 months respectively in 2021.
In July 2020, Greek courts ordered the schismatic brotherhood to hand over all territories both on and outside of Mt. Athos to the New Esphigmenou Brotherhood created by Patriarch Bartholomew in 2005, which has been living in the Athonite capital of Karyes. Authorities began evicting monks from the monastery’s properties in Greece later that month.
And now, according to Ekklisia Online and several other Greek outlets, the police are preparing for another eviction attempt.
The Greek police recently submitted a document to the Holy Epistasia (the governing monastic body for the Holy Mountain, representing the 20 ruling monasteries), requesting permission to launch a large-scale operation with significant police forces and vehicles.
But, as with previous incidents, Abbot Methodios and the brotherhood have no intention of surrendering:
We’re ready to defend the monastery to the death; this is our spiritual homeland. Here we were born spiritually and here we will die. The police are just employees... They’re obliged to do what they are told, and they’re hounding us.
If the fathers of the monasteries and the police come here so that Greeks fight Greek monks, they should get this idea out of their heads. But let them come. And whatever happens, let it happen. If the police drag me and pull me, will the monks sit with their hands tied? Or if they see an officer hitting a monk, will the fathers sit and watch? Crimes will be committed, incited by these monks who have no purpose.
Ekklisia Online published the letter from the police to the Holy Epistasia:
Photo: ekklisiaonline.gr
Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!
