Free Republic

BREAKING NEWS -DECEMBER 22, 2006 We have just been informed that the Greek Foreign Minister, Ms. Bakoyianni has given the order to empty the Konaki of Esphigmenou Monastery at Karyes, the Capital of Mount Athos by Sunday. Christmas leaves for the local Police have been cancelled! The government is trampling on the civil rights of the monks and this brotherhood that have lived there continuously for over 1500 years. The monks simply want to be left alone to live out their commitment to a peaceful monastic life of prayer and the government wants to throw over 100 monks out of...

Thessalonica, Greece, October 20, 2006 - The Greek Government will move, as early as this weekend, to have armed police forcibly remove the monks of the Holy and Sacred Monastery of Esphigmenou from their monastery property. Over 150 police have been deployed on Mt. Athos, an unprecedented number in a community entirely populated by peaceful and defenseless monks. The monks, who seek only a life of peace and prayer in their monastery, have been subject to a non-stop campaign of official harassment and intimidation by Patriarch Bartholomew of Istanbul, Turkey, and his accomplices in the Greek government, because of a...

Greece’s highest administrative court has rejected an appeal by Esphigmenou Monastery, upholding their eviction from the 1,000-year-old Esphigmenou Monastery. According to court sources, the Council of State ruled that it had no jurisdiction to decide whether the Esphigmenou monks were schismatic, as the Patriarchate has declared. The court decided that, under Greece’s constitution, the patriarchate has supreme spiritual authority over the semi-autonomous Mount Athos monastic community and is not subject to judicial scrutiny of such matters. The monks in Esphigmenou Monastery have been ordered out.