Persecution of Mount Athos' Esphigmenou Monastery by the EP

[Myrrh]

The following excerpt from a recent book about Mt Athos ("Mount Athos / Renewal in Paradise", Graham Speake, Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 189-192), by an author who was very sympathetic to, and eventually joined, Orthodoxy:

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"THREATS TO THE PAN-ORTHODOXY
AND AUTONOMY OF ATHOS

"Apart from the ups and downs (mostly downs) experienced by the non-Greek houses {monasteries], there have been other, more insidious threats to the ancient pan-Orthodox traditions of the Mountain and to its autonomy. In May 1992 the entire brotherhood of the Prophet Elijah skete was brutally expelled by a delegation of bishops from the Patriarchate in Constantinople. Since its foundation in the mid-eighteenth century this had been a Russian house, and since 1957 its monks had refused to commemorate the ecumenical patriarch. They were therefore technically in an irregular canonical position, but that is no excuse for the violent manner of their expulsion and the absence of any due process of law. The Patriarchate claimed that this episode was not motivated by anti-Russian sentiments, a claim that is not borne out by the facts.' The house has since been repopulated with Greek monks from the skete of Xenophontos.

In February 1994 a similar delegation of bishops arrived unannounced on Athos and expressed its intention of presiding at the meeting of the Holy Community planned for the next day. This was opposed by a majority of the representatives, though a minority of six were willing to accept the intervention. The immediate response of the delegation was to depose for no good reason the abbot of Xeropotamou and the representatives of Dionysiou, Philotheou and Simonopetra. As it happens, the deposed fathers were among the most outspoken on the subject of minority rights. The monks saw this as an unacceptable interference on the part of Constantinople in their traditional autonomy. Protests were published in the British and Greek press, and at Easter the depositions were finally retracted by patriarchal fax. But relations between the Mountain and the Patriarchate were badly damaged, and the split in the Holy Community between the majority and 'the six' was to fester for some time. In 1995 there was yet another incident involving the most senior monastery, Megiste Lavra. Lavra had been one of 'the six', the group of monasteries willing to support the Patriarchate's interventions, but there were signs that it was wavering and might join the other side. This would have given the necessary two-thirds majority to the group that contested the attempts by Constantinople to undermine the autonomy and the pan-Orthodox traditions of the Mountain. In March another delegation was sent from Constantinople and this time due notice had been given to the Holy Community.

But after a token reception in Karyes the bishops went straight to Lavra where they instituted a 'trial' behind locked doors. The outcome was that the abbot should remain in place but that three of his staunchest supporters (senior members of a group who had formed the cenobitic nucleus of the brotherhood at Lavra and who were believed to be traditionalists) should leave the monastery and return to their previous home at the skete of St Anne. This in effect ensured the loyalty of Lavra to the Patriarchate and the bishops regarded the crisis as solved. The Holy Community in Karyes, however, was understandably enraged at this interference in its domestic affairs and reserved its right not to accept the results.

Nevertheless the interference continued. The Patriarchate already reserved the right to grant (or withhold) blessings not only to non-Orthodox clergy who wished to make a pilgrimage to Athos but also to non-Greek Orthodox priests. Now it proposed to 'approve' the elections of abbots and of representatives to the Holy Community. It expressed a wish to vet the applications of non-Greek novices to the monasteries and to have the final say in the tonsuring of non-Greek monks. Shocked by these developments, the Holy Community asked, 'Why should only the non-Greeks be vetted by Constantinople before a monastery can accept them as novices? The Greeks too should be scrutinized; otherwise how could one reasonably deny the charge of racism?'

In addition to numerous incidents of novices being expelled from the non-Greek monasteries, it was by no means uncommon for parties of Slav or Romanian pilgrims either to be turned back at the border or to have their passports stamped with a visa that specifically excluded their entry to Athos. One such episode had occurred in the spring of 1994, when a boat bringing a group of Bosnian Serb students to visit Chilandar for a few hours was turned back by Greek officials. It elicited the following statement from the Holy Community:

These episodes, which have taken place repeatedly, not only at the expense of Orthodox foreigners, but also of Greeks from abroad and distinguished non-Orthodox foreigners, friends of the holy monasteries, are a flouting of the inalienable rights of hospitality of the twenty ruling monasteries, which alone are the hosts on the Holy Mountain. In this way, the ancient self-governing status of the Holy Mountain is circumvented, its religious and spiritual mission is hindered, its universality and international repute are undermined, and Greece is discredited as an Orthodox and democratic country abroad.' Embarrassed by their powerlessness to repudiate these challenges to their autonomy, the fathers resorted to appealing for support from other Orthodox Churches, other Christian Churches, the European Union, and the Friends of Mount Athos. The latter responded by publishing an article in The Times on Easter Monday 1995, signed by their President, Sir Steven Runciman, which stated:

For their part, the Foreign Ministry and the Patriarchate declare unswerving loyalty to the constitutional guarantees, and to the self-governing status of Athos in particular, 'so long as these are interpreted correctly', though what is meant by 'correctly' has never been clearly stated. Yet it is manifestly clear that the Ecumenical Patriarchate, steered by the Foreign Ministry that cannot itself afford to be accused of ethnic cleansing or constitutional violation, has exceeded its mandate of spiritual supervision of the mountain.

Sir Steven went on to emphasize the importance of the traditionalist position:

The [Holy] Community realises that the very heart and strength of Athonite monasticism is its ecumenical profile. As a federation of monastic houses, its belief in supranational parity is not a separatist movement but simply a traditional reality. The fathers' common Orthodox faith transcends and conquers ethnic differences. Mount Athos should not be the bugbear but the boast of modern Greece. As a member of the multinational EU, Greece alone can point to this unique republic under God- a paradigm of harmonious collaboration among different peoples striving for a common cause. The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Turkey, itself a persecuted entity, should rejoice in this most valuable adornment in its spiritual jurisdiction:"

The extent to which such protests carry weight in the corridors of the Phanar can never be known. We should perhaps content ourselves by remarking that the civil governor and his deputy, whom the Holy Community had identified as 'agents' of the Patriarchate and who had persistently interfered in their decision-making processes, were replaced; that an attempt was made, in January 1996, to bolster the cenobitic life of the Lavra by introducing the seventeen-member brotherhood of the cell of Bourazeri in Karyes (sadly this well-intentioned experiment failed and the Bourazeri brotherhood withdrew from the monastery); and that the Patriarchate has desisted from its aggressive policy of the early 1990s and no further incidents of patriarchal interference in the internal affairs of the Mountain have been reported. The unofficial schism between 'the six' and the other monasteries has ceased to have any real significance and is more or less forgotten, and at the same time relations with the Patriarchate have greatly improved. Groups of senior monks have been invited to visit the Phanar on a number of occasions in recent years and Patriarch Bartholomew, as part of his celebration of the millennium, planned to spend several days on Athos in July 2000, though this visit unfortunately did not take place." [end quote from book]

"Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise"
Graham Speake

[尼古拉前执事]

Below is an article which appeared in Kathimerini newspaper on December 31, 2006. Editors Note: While Kathimerini has written several articles on the Esphigmenou situation, the newspaper has taken an editorial position against the monastery. This bias, where they report the facts of the situation mixed in with their own opinions against the monastery, is unfortunately evident in all the news stories they write on the subject. However, in today's world of media bias, we have all become accustomed to separating facts from opinion, and we have posted their article on our web site in that spirit.

“Kathimerini” of Athens Greece, article published, December 31, 2006
Russian Intervention for Esphigmenou Monastery
Anxiety is expressed by the Moscow Patriarchate in a letter to the Fanar.
The United States and Turkey also showing interest in the developments.
By Stavros Tzimas (Kathimerini Staff writer)
(Translated into English by John Rigas)

Russian, Americans and Turks are following, everyone for their own reason, with interest the developments of the continuing dispute between the monks of the Sacred Monastery of Esphigmenou on Mount Athos and Fanar.

The atmosphere on Athos remains extremely tense after the latest sad events, and relations between the Agioreites and the State are walking a tight rope.

In a move that Agioreite sources attribute to a wider Russian game of influence on Mount Athos, The Moscow Patriarchate, after a relative petition of the monks, is taking an open position in the dispute, cautioning the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate “to abstain from irrational measures and the use of force.” In its letter, sent to the Chief Secretary of the Holy Synod of the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate, the powerful Metropolitan Kyrill of Smolensk and Kalingrad, responsible for the external relations, expresses “anxiety because of the tensions which is prevailing regarding the Esphigmenou Monastery and threatens to evolve in a confrontation with the use of force.”

As an excuse for the intervention, in an issue, which clearly touches upon the spiritual responsibilities of Fanar, the Metropolitan of Smolensk references “a letter of archimandrite Methodios (editors note; the abbot of Esphigmenou) to the Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexis, to whom he complains about all the oppressive measures taken by the Civil Authorities of Mount Athos which threaten,” according to his opinion, “the existence of the Holy Monastery.” The most interesting of all in this initiative, according to the same sources, is an attempt by Moscow, indirectly but clearly, the connection of the decision to expel from Mount Athos the monks of Esphigmenou with the methodical attempt of Fanar to displace the centuries old Russian presence from Athos.

“…In Russian, also, this Monastery is very precious to us, because it is the place where the founder of Russian Monasticism, that is Saint Anthony (of the Kiev Caves) was tonsured a Monk. And on the other hand the events taking place now at the Sacred Monastery of Esphigmenou remind our faithful of the sad history of the last decade, when similar violent actions, in the Skete of Prophet Elias on the Holy Mountain (Editors note; in 1992 monks of Russian descent were expelled from there) which was built by the monks and their benefactors from Russia and which has now become unapproachable for Russian Monks” he characteristically notes.

Other sources friendly to the Holy Community, talking about the open intervention of Moscow in the case of Esphigmenou associate it, with the loss of the Russian dominance in the Holy Monastery of Saint Panteleimonos, the most important center of Russian monasticism on Mount Athos, whose administration passed on to the majority voting Ukrainians after the fall of the Soviet Union.

They also made mention of the Russian Church’s attempt, given the opportunity, to inflict one more “blow below the waist” against the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the continuous struggle of the Russians to be the “Third Rome,” the transfer that is, of the center of worldwide Orthodoxy from the Fanar to Moscow.

Interest, but from a different perspective, for Esphigmenou being singled out for oppressive measures on the Holy Mountain, has been shown by the American side. Officials of the Embassy in Athens and its Consulate in Thessalonika have been frequent visitors of late to Karyes and they are there to get first hand information about condition. The difference that for the Americans, the whole issue is one of nothing more than an issue of Human Rights. They are involved because of the pressures which are put on their Government from the real powerful Lobby of the Old Calendarists in the United States of America.

The evolving events, besides, are being also closely monitored by Ankara, even though at first glance they may appear not to concern her. Diplomatic sources have told “K” (Kathimerini) that the handling by Fanar regarding this subject are written down by the Turks and a possible bloody confrontation will feed the arguments as to how not only Greece is perceived, but also the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in areas such as tolerance of those with different views in religious faith. These are some of the same subjects that have been placed as hurdles for Turkey to overcome in order for it to be able to proceed with the negotiations for its inclusion in the E. U.

The Monks are preparing for a new round.

As the Holy Mountain community is preparing to celebrate, with the Old Calendar, the Birth of Christ, the atmosphere of calmness and reconciliation is overshadowed by the Esphigmenou Monastery problem. In Karyes their “Alamo” ( Nkouki-referring to a Greek Monastery in the war of 1821 which fought to the bitter end, then, the abbot Gabriel, gave the order to blow it up) as the monks of the Konaki like to refer to it, is being reinforced by monks sent in from the Esphigmenou Monastery who are prepared for everything.

At the old administration building light sensors have been installed and hidden cameras so that any unwanted presence will be detected in time. The fathers of Esphigmenou are clear, that they are preparing for the third round and are taking all measures to repel the “invaders,” as they label the members of the legal brotherhood.

The planned (Special Forces Police) operation which did not take place.

An organized police attempt for the forceful removal from the Konaki on Christmas eve was aborted at the last moment, due to the timely mobilization of the monks inside and outside the Holy Mountain. About seventy men of the Special Forces arrived on Friday evening, 22 December, two days after the sad events at Karyes, with orders to expel from the Konaki the three or four remaining Esphigmenou monks.

Information from Karyes said, that the attack was decided upon, after pressure from the Fanar and also from the Holy Community and that Ms Dora Bakoyianni concurred, but the official responsible for affairs on the Holy Mountain assistant Foreign Minister Theodore Kassimis was against it.

Even though, the operation was known by only four to five individuals, the operation was leaked and the whole plan appeared on the Esphigmenou.com web site, even before the Special Police Forces reached Ouranoupolis! The excellently organized and executed plans of the monks was set in motion; telephones of journalists began ringing in the deep of night, camera crews from friendly T. V. Stations with their equipment were invited to be given “hospitality” at the Konaki and somewhere in between all these things, the planned Special Forces Operation went for a walk.

The Fanar “… is a Red Cloth”

Besides being the guardians of the Genuine Orthodox Christian Faith, the fanatic zealots have presented themselves also as supporters of the Nation. In their web page they present themselves as “Greek citizens” who are being persecuted from a …”Turkish citizen”, that is what they call the Ecumenical Patriarch, who also, according to them directs the actions of the Foreign Minister Ms. Dora Bakoyianni!

All these things one would have thought of as a joke, if it were not that behind the subject of Esphigmenou are recorded the amassing and the mobilization of the Old Calendarists and those opposed to the Patriarchate, all around the whole World. In a world in which it has economic strength and influence, at the centers where decisions are made, such as the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Russia, but also here in Greece, the Ecumenical Patriarch is "the Red Cloth”, the glory seeking “conqueror” of their Jerusalem, as they think of Esphigmenou, the “Trojan Horse” of the Pope and the Turks, and the Greek Foreign Ministry as his implementation tool.

There is no doubt that the Fanar has got itself into a difficult position with regard to Esphigmenou issue, in a period indeed where the Ecumenical Patriarchate has need, for many reasons, of a positive public image worldwide.

Its handling of the issue has put it in a corner.

Its insistence on the use of force for the expulsion of the fundamentalists brought about the frontal attack in a dispute which was “dormant” for decades.

The monks with the help of those outside the Holy Mountain, are using the weapon of communications faultlessly and it appears that they are wining the war against legality which the Fanar is justly invoking.

The Role of the State

The state got involved in this complicated fraught with danger web by its role and with a “heavy heart” in which the state finds itself between the “anvil and the hammer”. It is the state which according to the Charter must send in the Police to throw out from the Konaki and the Monastery of Esphigmenou the “illegal and schismatic” as they have been labeled by the Patriarchate, or “Taliban” as some agioreite monks called them. A probable bloody encounter, would make the rounds of the world through televised pictures, which will then be assessed to the government of Greece.

This is why it is trying to avoid by all means the bitter “cup” of Police intervention.

But this course threatens to cool relations with the Patriarchate and with the Holy Mountain leadership. As for the relations with the agioreite and the Government, these were non existent in essence, until the Prime Minister Mr. K. Karamanlis made an unofficial but successful visit to Athos in the summer and restarted them.

[Myrrh]

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/ ... atican.php

Does anyone know where to find the full version from the 20 Athonite monasteries?

I see that the letter of the 20 ruling monasteries of the Holy Mountain concludes with a denial that Rome has apostolic succession and the grace of the sacraments.

In other words, the monasteries are basically holding to the position for which Esphigmenou is being persecuted. One wonders if the Patriarch will now feel obliged to evict all the monks from the Holy Mountain, about 3,000 of them.

The letter from the Monasteries continues "... during the just concluded visit of the Pope to the Fanar and His Beatitude the Archbishop (Christodoulos' ) visit to the Vatican was the cause of deep pain in our hearts. Perhaps there were some worldly benefit from all these, but during these visits there took place actions which are not in agreement with the practices of Orthodox Ecclesiology. Your receiving the Pope as though he were the Canonical Bishop of Rome. Also his standing on the Bishop's Throne during the Orthodox Divine Liturgy wearing an Omophorion, his reciting the "Our Father," the Liturgical kiss with the Patriarch, are actions which surpass the simple praying together, which are forbidden be the Sacred Canons. And all these happenings, when the papal tradition has not changed in anything or any of its heretical teachings and politics..."

Then they continue and make their final declaration, which may not be palatable to some on this list --- they declare the Papal Church to be bereft of Apostolic succession and without "grace."

The Athonite fathers then revert to the resolutions of the 1980 Double Meeting of the Holy Community of Athos, Esphigmenou Monastery was part of this meeting, and all agreed, " ... we believe that our Holy Orthodox Church is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, having the fullness of Grace and Truth and has the Apostolic Succession without any interruption. Conversely, the "churches" and "confessions" of the West have in many places twisted the Faith of the Bible, the Apostles and the Fathers, are lacking
sanctifying grace, do not have true Mysteries (Sacraments) and Apostolic Succession."FrAmbrose

[尼古拉前执事]

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BATTLE FOR ESPHIGMENOU
by Vladimir Moss.

At a time when True Orthodoxy, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, is suffering one blow after another, the latest blow being the falling away of the Russian Church Abroad from the faith, it gladdens the heart of every True Orthodox believer to read of the heroic resistance put up by the Athonite monastery of Esphigmenou to the uniate Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

Esphigmenou is one of the twenty official monasteries of the Holy Mountain of Athos. It is especially dear to Russian hearts because it was from Esphigmenou, and with the blessing of its abbot, that St. Anthony of Kiev set off to found heremitical monasticism in his native land. Three centuries later, St. Gregory Palamas, who laid the theological foundations of the hesychast movem ent, was abbot of Esphigmenou.

In 1924, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate, followed by the State Churches of Greece and Romania, anticanonically introduced the papist Gregorian calendar into the Orthodox Church, the monks of Esphigmenou were among the Athonite monks who led the defence of Orthodoxy by rejecting the calendar innovation. In 1972, Abbot Athanasius of Esphigmenou led the rebellion on Athos against the heresy of ecumenism, breaking communion not only with the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the other official Churches of World Orthodoxy that participated in the ecumenical movement, but also with all the other monasteries on Mount Athos which, while preserving the Orthodox Calendar, remained in communion with World Orthodoxy.

This remains the position of Esphigmenou to the present day. Under its famous banner, “Orthodoxy or Death”, it has inspired True Orthodox around the world who might otherwise have grown weak in their defence of the truth. The monastery has founded important metochia (podvoria) in Greece, including the monastery in which the leader of the True Orthodox Church of Greece, Archbishop Chrysostom (Kiousis), lives, at Megara; and an Esphigmenou monk, Schema-Hieromonk Akakije, has led the restoration of True Orthodoxy to Serbia. So influential has it become that the ecumenist heretics have even tried to drive the monks out of the monastery by force, besieging it by land and sea, confiscating its property and creating a new legal entity, the pseudo-monastery of “Esphigmenou”, as a legal ploy to take over the monastery by illegal means.

Five monks (out of 117) have so far died as a direct result of the aggression waged against the monastery; and that figure may well rise if the soldiers assembled in the capital of Mount Athos today succeed in entering the monastery. Truly, it is a question of Orthodoxy or death on Mount Athos today… Just as the autonomous monastic republic of Mount Athos transcends national and jurisdictional boundaries, so the significance of the battle for Esphigmenou transcends the struggle for truth in the Greek-speaking lands. The case may go to the European Court of Human Rights; and the Athenian newspaper Kathimerini says that the American administration is watching events on Athos closely, because of the powerful lobby of the Old Calendarists in the United States. To tell the truth, the present writer had no idea that the Old Calendarists have such a powerful lobby in the United States, and very much doubts that this is the case.

But the perception that such a lobby exists is a tribute to the influence of the Esphigmenou monks, and the fear in which the leaders of World Orthodoxy hold this small band of confessors. For “how should one chase thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up? For their rock is not as our Rock” (Deuteronomy 32.30-31). For their rock is the feeble human wisdom of the ecumenists, whereas our Rock is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself…

Of particular interest is the interest taken by the Moscow Patriarchate in this struggle. Why should the MP, whose leaders are rabid ecumenists, and whose heresy has been exposed many times by the publications of Esphigmenou, decide to intercede on behalf of the monastery and warn the Ecumenical Patriarch not to interfere? Clearly not out of love for the truth, but out of a desire to embarrass their chief rivals in World Orthodoxy… The quarrel between Moscow and Constantinople for pre-eminence in World Orthodoxy is rapidly developing into a farce. The one side is backed by the Russian Federation, the other – by the United States, and so the ecclesiastical rivalry between two heretical churches, which has swung recently from Estonia to London to Greece, has become a proxy war masking the resumption of cold war hostilities in the political world. In fact, there is nothing at all ecclesiastical in the rivalry: it is entirely a matter of politics, which fits in perfectly with the essential nature of ecumenism (or “ecucommunism”), which is the dogmatic justification of the practice of political compromise and appeasement in the realm of dogmatic truth.

Esphigmenou is placed like the tiny state of Old Testament Israel between the rival pagan blocs of Moscow-Babylon and Constantinople-Egypt. While they stand for the naked lust for power and influence, for worldly interests and worldly conquests, Esphigmenou stands for “the one thing necessary”, the pearl of great price, the Orthodox faith, for which the man who finds it is prepared to sell everything that he has. While they amass friends in the world, money and property, Esphigmenou looks only to the Lord God, the Rock of Salvation; for “friendship with the world is enmity with God” and “what is a man profited if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?”

If the Esphigmenou monks are driven out of their monastery, this will not be a defeat for them, but only yet another sign that the truth lies with them, and not with their heretical persecutors. And in that truth lies a power that will scatter all their enemies like dust on the day that the Lord stands up to save His people. In this lies their significance, not only for us, the True Orthodox, and not only for our former, fallen brothers, the ecumenist Orthodox, but for the whole world…

[Myrrh]

www.esphigmenou.com

An Open Letter

Code: Select all

                                                                    December, 2006

To the Holy Abbots and the Holy Representatives of the Sacred Twenty Monasteries in the Sacred Community of the Holy Mount Athos

Holy Abbots and Holy Fathers,

Bless!

We desire at the present time to express our deepest concern and sadness for all that is taking place for years now, in our Holy Orthodoxy, the deconstruction of the teaching of the Holy Apostles and of the Holy Fathers and the antithesis to all the sacred canons enacted by the ecumenical and local synods. We wonder if some ecumenical synod has been assembled and abolished the canons which forbid the joint prayer with heretics, or if the Pope repented and renounced the heresies of the Filioque, of primacy, of infallibility, of unleavened bread, of the purifying fire [purgatory], of created grace, of the immaculate conception of the Most Holy Theotokos, and so many others, most of which he has been condemned and anathematized numerous times by Orthodox Synods and by the entirety of the Holy Fathers.

Heaven was angered and the Holy Fathers exceedingly saddened by the spectacle and by hearing about all that took place at the Phanar (neighborhood in which the Ecumenical Patriarch resides in Istanbul-Ed. note) during the feast of the Holy Apostle Andrew on the 30th of November of the current year.

Unprecedented and unheard of things in the two thousand year history of the Church. “The scornful marginalization of the dogmas of the Fathers, the annihilation of the Apostolic traditions, the introduction of novelties into the churches by contemporary personalities,” as St. Basil the Great says, regarding comparable events during his own time.

Everything happened literally upside-down.

Instead of the heretical Pope being cast down, as we see the heretics depicted in the Icons of the Holy Synods, and being ejected from the Divine Liturgy, as required by the liturgical command, “the doors, the doors, in wisdom let us attend,” we placed him on a high throne, where he sat and along with others, he too, wore an omophorion, the Orthodox deacons censed him, the Patriarch exchanged the Liturgical Kiss with him at the “let us love one another,” and he recited as though being the one in charge, the proestos, the “Our Father…,” and the chorus of the sacred cantors chanted to him the “Many Years,” and a specially composed hymn from an Athonite hymnographer – Lord, have mercy! – if, of course, the journalistic communications are true.

And he was permitted to give the congregation his blessing, rather, his madness according to the sacred canons.

We allowed the Church militant on earth to be divided from the Church triumphant of the Saints in heaven and to be united to churches and assemblies of evil heretics.

We insulted all of the holy martyrs and confessors who struggled to the point of blood against the heresies, because we present their struggles, their martyrdoms and their confessions as unbeneficial and useless.

Will not the blessed Holy Mountain Fathers who were martyred by [Ecumenical Patriarch John - Ed. note] Bekkos because they refused to receive him and to commemorate the Pope, be sorry, seeing us not only to reject their example with our silence, but to do the opposite?

Why then did all of the previous martyrs undergo martyrdom and why did the confessors stand fast in their profession of the Faith?

You know, Reverend Fathers, better than we do, of all the anti-Orthodox and blasphemous actions, statements, and decisions of the Ecumenical Patriarch and other heads of institutions, Abbots and Bishops who loudly and overtly advise – bareheadedly – the acceptance and teaching of the panheresy of Ecumenism.

It is the greatest ecclesiological heresy of all ages.

It rejects the uniqueness of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church and, equates it to the heresies, by accepting their Mysteries as having and communicating, sanctifying and saving grace.

Besides recognition of the baptism of Papists and Lutherans, we also have participation in the common chalice with Monophysites and in many instances with the Papists in the Cyclades [islands in Aegean Sea, Greece Ed. note] and in the Diaspora.

We have now realized with greater sadness, that the spiritual leadership of the Holy Mountain of the last years has not confronted with fortitude and confessional courage, these manifest appearances of apostasy, as the Athonite Fathers of bygone times did.

The Patriarch has gauged our responses and because they have been half-hearted, and many times non-existent, he proceeds without any obstacles into union with the Pope, who is unrepentant and remains in heresies.

He gauged us and was exceedingly glad also at his last visit to the Holy Mountain to make it appear that he came to receive the consent and blessing of the Athonites for all the things that he had already planned to do with the Pope a few days later.

We, the humble priestmonks and monks, in the form of confession disclose to you that we have been scandalized by the silence and inaction of our spiritual authorities on Mount Athos, and together with us, all the people of Greece and all Orthodox around the globe, as well as those who are sympathetic to monastics.

They all are waiting to hear the voice of Mount Athos.

From you, the wisest and most sage, we have learned that when the faith is endangered, we are all accountable if we are silent and shrink back, as St. Theodore the Studite says. Particularly, a monk must not allow the slightest innovation in matters of the faith, according to the same holy Father and great monastic leader and organizer of monastic life and the Elder of us all. He did not fear the threats and the persecutions of the iconoclastic, Emperors and Patriarchs, but even within the environs of Constantinople, within the enclosure of the Great Sacred Monastery of Studion, he organized a procession with a thousand torch bearing monks, who held the forbidden holy icons in their hands.

Ten thousand monks in Palestine, under leadership of Saints Savvas the Sanctified and Theodosios the Cenobite, these great monastic leaders, assembled together long before in Jerusalem, and saved Orthodoxy from the heresy of Monothelitism.

Who is going to save the Church today from the panheresy of Ecumenism and the deceit of Papism?

The letters of protest, which the Sacred Community has sent from time to time to the Ecumenical Patriarch did not bring about any results.

There is no more time for words. It is time for action.

We, unlearned and wretched sinners, do not want to teach you, nor do we want to present ourselves as confessors.

We just want to set at ease our Orthodox monastic conscience; We want to especially honor the holy martyrs and confessors, particularly those ones martyred by Bekkos.

We want to honor and follow their conduct.

To not shrink back and place the monasteries and our brotherhoods above the purity of the faith, above God, and the truth.

We believe that after so many oral and written protests and pleas, after so many retractions [i.e., going back one’s word], retreats, and compromises, the only thing which will gladden the Orthodox and shame the heretic, is a cessation of the commemoration of the Patriarch's name (as Esphigmenou Monastery has bravely done for decades now under its fearless Abbot Archimandrite Methodios and his ever-memorable predecessors the holy Abbots Athanasios and Euthymios - is currently being mercilessly persecuted by His All Holiness and the Greek Government and some in the Holy Community in Athos-Editor's Note) in the services and not only that, but the cessation of commemoration of the names in all the services, of all the bishops agreeing with him wherever they may be around the World who remain silent.

Gather together, holy Fathers, the monks of all the Monasteries, of the Sketes, of the Kellia, in a militant all monastic assembly, either within or outside the Holy Mountain and knock down the towers of heresy, of Papism, of Ecumenism.

Take on the good fight of the Faith.

We, if you remain inactive, will prefer doing things pleasing to God and not things pleasing to man.

May God enlighten us all, and may the Most Holy Theotokos cover and bless Her Garden and protect the Orthodox Church from those warring against Her and from those heretics warring against the Saints, as well as from cowardly shepherds who leave the flock unprotected from attacks of the wolves.

Finally, asking for your blessings, we conclude with respect,

Hieromonk Ephraim, former abbot, Elder of the Skete of Apostle Andrew and the brotherhood with me, of the Holy Monastery of Vatopedi.

Elder Hieromonk Eustratios, Great Laura Monastery.

Elder Hieromonk Poimen, Holy Monastery of Zographou

Elder Hieromonk Basileios, Holy Monastery of Zographou

Elder Hieromonk Bessarion, Holy Monastery of Zographou

Monk Nikodemos (Bilalis, Sacred Cell "of the Presentation" from Kapsala

Monk Artemios, Great Laura Monastery

Priestmonk Hilarion, Great Laura Monastery

Paisios Monk, Great Laura Monastery

Savvas Monk, Great Laura Monastery

Sacred Deacon Chariton, Great Laura Monastery

Chariton Monk, Karoulia, Great Laura Monastery

Athanasios Monk, Karoulia, Great Laura Monastery

Elder Vlasios Monk,Kserokalyvo Viglas, Great Laura Monastery

Akakios Monk Sacred Place of Holy Trinity (Kyr Isaiah) Great Laura Monastery

Elder Isaiah Monk, Kellion of the Birth of the Mother of God, Great Laura Monastery

Cherubim Monk, Sacred place of the Archangels, Great Laura Monastery

Hieromonk Damaskinos, Kellion of Holy Trinity at Karyes, Great Laura Monastery

Elder Nektarios Monk, Kellion of Holy Trinity at Karyes, Great Laura Monastery

Elder Theolyptos Monk and the fathers with him; Kellion of the Sacred Forerunner,St.Anne's Skete, Great Laura Monastery

Hieromonk Gabriel, Sacred Kellion of St. George(Kartsounaion) Sacred Skete of St. Anne, Great Laura Monastery

Hieromonk Chrysostomos Kartsonas, Great Laura Monastery

Elder Kosmas Monk,Sacred Hut of St. Demetrios, Skete of Saint Anne, Great Laura Monastery

Elder Panteleimon Monk, Sacred Kellion of St. Panteleimon, Sacred Skete of Holy Trinity, Great Laura Monastery

Elder Sophronios Monk, Sacred Hut of Entrance of the Theotokos, Sacred Skete of Holy Trinity, Great Laura Monastery

Parthenios Monk, Sacred Hut Entrance of Theotokos, Sacred Skete of Holy Trinity Great Laura Monastery

Athanasios Monk at Vouleutiria, Great Laura Monastery

Elder Hieromonk Serapheim, Kellion of All Saints, Skete of Saint Anne, Great Laura Monastery

Elder Daniel Monk, Saint Anne's, Great Laura Monastery

Elder Gerasimos Monk Sacred Hut of St. George, Katounakia, Great Laura Monastery

Elder Hieromonk Benediktos, Kellion of Ss Konstantine and Eleni, Vatopedi Monastery

Paisios Monk, Kellion of Archangels (Savvaion) Karyes, Hilandari Monastery

Silouanos Monk Sacred Hut of St. Nicholas, Nea Skete, St. Paul Monastery

Gabriel Monk Kellion of Koutloumousiou of Saint Christodoulos

Dositheos Monk, Koutloumousiou Monastery Place

Elder Nektarios Monk, Sacred Hut of Holy Trinity, Skete of Koutloumousiou Monastery

Paisios Monk, Kellion of Saint Barbara, Koutloumousiou Monastery

Elder Moses Monk, Kellion St. John Chrysostomos, Skete of St. Panteleimonos, Koutloumousiou Monastery

Elder Hieromonk Abraaham, Sacred Hut of St Gerasimos Kefalinias, Skete of St. Panteleimonos, Koutloumousiou Monastery

Elder Spyridon Monk, Kellion of St. Nicholas, Koutloumousiou Monastery

Theodoulos Monk, formerly of Koutloumousiou Monastery

Elder Hieromonk Chrysostom, Kellion of St. Spyridon of Kerkyra, Koutloumousiou Monastery

Hilarion Monk, Sacred Place of Doheiariou Monastery ( Platon area)

Elder Nikodemos Monk, Kellion of St. Nektarios Kapsala, Pantokratoros Monastery

Hieromonk Gabriel, Kellion of Quick to Hear Mother of GOD, Pantokratoros Monastery

Isaac Monk, Kellion of Birth of Mother of GOD, Kapsala, Pantokratoros Monastery

Elder Athanasios Monk, Kellion of St . Athanasios, Pantokratoros Monastery

Elder Meletios Monk, Birth of Theotokos, Kapsala, Pantokratoros Monastery

Elder Gregory Monk Kellion of St. Nicholas, Kapsala, Pantokratoros Monastery

Elder Onoufrios Monk, Kellion Dormition of Theotokos, Karyes

Elder Nicholas Monk, Kellion of St. Demetrios, Karyes

Hieromonk Gabriel, Kellion of Holy Archangels (Kombologas) Karyes

These are the names, thus far, of Fathers and Monks as of this publishing, who up to now commemorated Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.There are many others who are now asking to add their names to this list of Holy Mountain Orthodox confessors

[Myrrh]

We believe that after so many oral and written protests and pleas, after so many retractions [i.e., going back one’s word], retreats, and compromises, the only thing which will gladden the Orthodox and shame the heretic, is a cessation of the commemoration of the Patriarch's name (as Esphigmenou Monastery has bravely done for decades now under its fearless Abbot Archimandrite Methodios and his ever-memorable predecessors the holy Abbots Athanasios and Euthymios - is currently being mercilessly persecuted by His All Holiness and the Greek Government and some in the Holy Community in Athos-Editor's Note) in the services and not only that, but the cessation of commemoration of the names in all the services, of all the bishops agreeing with him wherever they may be around the World who remain silent.

I think this is quite extraordinary, having got the impression that no other monasteries supported Esphigmenou.

Myrrh

[尼古拉前执事]

In another escalation of the Greek Government's official campaign of persecution, harassment and intimidation against the monks of the Holy and Sacred Monastery of Esphigmenou, Greek prosecutor George Floridis of Thessaloníki, has trumped up charges of embezzlement against the monks. Click here to hear the BBC interview with George Dalacouras, the Greek governor of Mount Athos, which totally exposes the prosecution's case as baseless, and another act of persecution against these peaceful and defenseless monks.