Mt. Athos, August 29, 2025
Elder Parthenios, abbot of St. Paul’s Monastery on Mount Athos and one of the Holy Mountain’s most beloved spiritual guides, has issued a stern warning to Orthodox Christians against accepting Greece’s new Personal Identification Number, calling it “illegal” and “demonic.”
In a recorded message to his spiritual children, the Elder declares that what the state is doing “is illegal because it’s not spiritual, and they’re not spiritual people to direct the Church. The Church is directed by our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the head of the Church.”
“This matter of identity concerns us Christians unbearably because we are baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity and we are chrismated. We are children of the Church, children of God,” Elder Parthenios states. “And how dare they do this thing, wanting to put codes on us, etc.? Dark things! And an identity card whose contents we don’t know.”
The Elder urges the faithful not to rush to obtain the personal number, emphasizing the Christian understanding of personhood: “We’re not atoms, we’re Christians in the name of the Triune God, and numbers and such things don’t save us. The Body and Blood of Christ save us.”
Elder Parthenios warns that accepting such measures represents acquiescence to a broader agenda: “Tomorrow they’ll tell us they’ll create a cashless society. But Christ didn’t create a cashless society. He left us free, each one to think and decide and act. All these things are demonic and tempting. They’re of atheist people.”
“These are from the Masonic lodges,” he states plainly. “We must confess. The time has come, we’re in the years of the Apocalypse.”
The controversy over personal identification numbers has been ongoing in Greece for many years, with Mt. Athos consistently voicing opposition. In August 2024, the Sacred Community of Mt. Athos, representing all 20 ruling monasteries, sent a letter to the Greek Minister of Digital Governance questioning the mandatory nature of the Personal Identification Number system and expressing “serious concern and worry about the protection of citizens’ personal data.”
The Sacred Community asked pointedly: “Can the General Secretariat of Public Administration Information Systems, where according to the law ‘the P.I.N. registry will be maintained,’ assure the security of our personal information?”
The Greek Holy Synod approved the ID number system in June 2025, stating that it merely replaces existing numbers that citizens already possess. However, not all bishops support this decision, with His Eminence Metropolitan Nektarios of Corfu recently issuing a strong critique arguing that the Synod’s approval represents “profound theological failure” and warning about “the possibility of universal control, depersonalization, alteration of human dignity and undermining of freedom of conscience.”
Elder Parthenios concludes his message with urgency: “Be careful, be careful, be careful! Stand well! Tomorrow they’ll tell us they’re stealing our degrees and such, and we’ll put on the seal. We’ve come to the years of the Apocalypse. Know it, feel it that this is where we’re going.”
“I don’t judge anyone, I’m not a judge. God didn’t make me a judge, but I don’t follow lawlessness either,” the Elder says, encouraging Christians to maintain their faith: “We believe in this, we confess this, we feel this, and with this we beseech God to close our eyes: Our love for God and the Theotokos and our saints. Everything else is superfluous. It’s unnecessary.”
Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!
