Persecution of Mount Athos' Esphigmenou Monastery by the EP

[Justin Kissel]

Holy Father Tryphon Martyred For the Faith

Note: The above Title is the wording of the "News Report," and does not necessarily reflect my own views.

[Nektarios14]

How sad that it has come to this. This should show the diabolical spirit of ecumenism for what it is...agree with me or I will literally kill you. Why must it come to violence??

[Logos]

Because ecumenism needs violence in order to prevail. I think many see itis dangers, yet there are those who are determined to force it down our throats.

[尼古拉前执事]

From Father Mark Gilstrap on the Orthodox-Synod List:

Code: Select all

"Rebel", "Taliban" and "Traitors" - just some of the 
labels reported by the NYTimes as being applied to 
Athonite zealot fathers who "defy and vilify" a com-
promising hierarchy  -  "overly zealous" behaviour
(aka "Ozites" - a label used as a weapon by some in 
our own dear church) - and who have now finally 
been declared "schismatic" and "squatters on sacred 
ground" by that same hierarchy.    

Let it be written, let it be so - or so the majority who 
compromise truth would have us believe.   To 
marginalize (by ad hominem and slander) the witness 
of  those who force you to look into a mirror is so much 
easier than it is to have to look into that mirror and 
confront the evidence of one's own betrayal.  

Nine or ten years ago ROCA's own small community 
at Prophet Elias Skete was ousted from the Holy 
Mountain at gunpoint because they 'vilified' the Pope
of the East by commemorating right-believing bishops
rather than the Ecumenical Patriarch by name.   That 
offense (the expulsion) is long forgotten.   Enough time 
has now passed with no real consequences.   And now 
they have come for Esphigmenou, and next...? The jack 
boots of world orthodoxy march on.

===========
NYTimes.com
February 8, 2003
By FRANK BRUNI

MOUNT ATHOS, Greece, Feb. 4 - The rebel forces
occupying a rugged cove on the Aegean here number
more than 100, and they will not budge.

They have enough food to last them two years, given
that they favor rudimentary meals, sometimes just once
a day. They have enough faith to sustain them through
utter isolation, which is actually their preferred lifestyle.

They have munitions, of a sort.

"There are 300 bullets here," said Father Methodius,
their fearless leader, as he lifted his weapon in the air.
It was a roped prayer chain of precisely that many
knots, and his battalion of black-robed, bushy-bearded
monks had plenty more.

This remote, mountainous peninsula in northern Greece,
where 20 Orthodox monasteries lie beyond the reach
of paved roads and most of the intrusions of everyday
life, has become the unlikely setting of a holy war, or at
least an extremely nasty spiritual spat over who says
prayers, and which ones.

After decades of defying and vilifying a succession of
patriarchs of Orthodox Christianity, Father Methodius
and the roughly 110 other denizens of the ultra-conservative
Esfigmenou monastery here have been ordered out of
their fortresslike cloister and off Mount Athos. They were
supposed to be gone by Jan. 28.

They are not, and they say they will die before they leave,
a pledge underlined by the message on a banner that hangs
by the entrance. It reads, "Orthodoxy or Death."

The local police have restricted the movement of supplies
and visitors into and out of the Esfigmenou monastery
and have been empowered to prevent any Esfigmenou
monks who step off Mount Athos from returning.

Representatives from other monasteries on the peninsula
vow to get rid of them, by hook, crook or judicial fiat.
The dispute is before Greece's highest administrative court.

"We don't intend to shoot them or use force against them
or even give them the pleasure of making them look like
martyrs," said Father Ioannis, the chief secretary of the
council of monastery representatives that supervises the
daily affairs of Mount Athos.

But, Father Ioannis added, "They have to understand that
they cannot be the Taliban" of the peninsula.

The slender, 31-mile-long finger of land has long been
revered by Orthodox Christians, and it remains a semi-
autonomous state, answerable in a fashion to the patriarch
and to the Greek Foreign Ministry.

A few dirt roads cross its steep slopes and only ferry
service connects it to the mainland. Visitors need special
permits, and women are not allowed. Even female livestock
are kept away.

But its tranquility has been sullied for at least 30 years
by a brewing - now boiling - debate over how prayers are
said, and with whom.

After Orthodox leaders began a dialogue with the Roman
Catholic Church, the monks of Esfigmenou, who viewed
that as a betrayal of the religion, stopped mentioning one
ecumenical patriarch after another in devotions. They also
stopped praying with monks who did not take the same
course.

"They shout at us, calling us traitors," Father Ioannis said.

They refused to repent. Finally, in November, the current
ecumenical patriarch, Bartholomew, branded them schismatics
and therefore squatters on sacred ground. They were later
served with the eviction order.

In their court appeal, they claim a violation of their freedom
of religion.

But their statements to reporters go beyond that, describing
a pitched struggle between encroaching modernity and aged
tradition, hedonism and asceticism, in which they represent the
last surviving vestige of how things should be.

They are an interesting lot, steeped in old rituals and mystical
convictions.

They still follow the Julian instead of the Gregorian calendar
and cling to a Byzantine method of telling time, regularly
resetting their clocks so that the dividing line between one
day and the next is when the sun sets.

They say when an Esfigmenou monk dies, his body does
not go into rigor mortis, but remains flexible forever.

"It is a miracle," said Father Gregory, one of the monks.

Father Gregory also said the left leg of Mary Magdalene
is under lock and key in the monastery's church, and has
never decomposed.

"You can see the nerves," he said.

They live without electricity, mirrors, hot water for bathing
or almost any other creature comforts. But they say that
some of the other monasteries have gone so far as to install
private bathrooms, computers and Internet access.

"These things do not benefit a monastic life," said Father
Neophytos, another of the Esfigmenou monks.

They also refuse to take European Union cultural funds for
the restoration of monasteries, but note that others on Mount
Athos accept the money. They say outside agitations for an
end to the peninsula's ban on women and a beginning of tourist
resorts cannot be far behind.

Father Ioannis dismissed all of that as melodramatic nonsense
from "people who lack prudence and sane mental understanding."

The Esfigmenou monks do seem to exaggerate at times.
When a reporter encountered one on the ferry to Mount.
Athos and asked him how he would get past the police
and back into the monastery, he said: "I climb. I fly."

Minutes later, when the ferry docked, he walked slowly
and calmly to a waiting truck. There was not a police
officer in sight.

The Esfigmenou monks say the police have relaxed their
vigilance because of news media attention, but still watch
them from the surrounding hills, ready to pounce.

Greek officials and a spokesman for the patriarch say that
will never happen, which suggests that the standoff could
go on for a while.

"I'm not concerned," said Father Amartolos as he stood
guard this morning at the entrance to the Esfigmenou
monastery, his fingers tying knots in a new prayer chain.

"I'm in the embrace of Mary, the mother of Jesus," Father
Amartolos said. "The way she holds Jesus, she holds us."

===========

[demetrios karaolanis]

ecumenism has been called the heresy of heresies and I strongly agree with this statement. leave the athonites alone!!! let the monks keep thier traditions and ways rather than letting them be trampled on by ecumenists and other groups. hearing this all really upsets me as someone who wants to be an athonite some day soon. I would like a peaceful world of monasticism I just wish a great wall would come up around it and protect it hearing these things deeply distresses me and I hope they stir more of the true faithful to action.

[尼古拉前执事]

All I can say is Amen!

[尼古拉前执事]

Press Release from www.esphigmenou.com

Greece's Highest Court lifts blockade of besieged
Mount Athos Monastery

Mount Athos, Greece. March 14, 2003.

In a sharp rebuke to the Patriarch Bartholomew, Greece's highest
administrative court issued a ruling today lifting the police blockade
in place since January 28 and also lifting the embargo for delivery
of food, medicine and electricity which has been in place for a year.
The ruling allows the monks to come and go from their monastery,
allows them to obtain food, water and heating oil. The court is
expected to issue a final decision on the case in October.

"We are pleased with the courts intervention and are convinced that
justice will ultimately prevail and the monks will be allowed to remain
in their monastic home," said, Ifigenia Kamtsidou lawyer for the
Monastery.

One monk has died in the standoff, a 25 year-old named Tryfonas.
The tragic accident occurred February 11 when the tractor he was
driving went off the road into a ravine as he was trying to avoid a
police blockade that prevented the monks from leaving the
property to buy food, medicine and other provisions.

Patriarch Bartholomew and Greek authorities had blockaded basic
food, medical supplies and heating oil to the 117 monks at the
Esphigmenou monastery on Mt Athos. The monks are being
targeted by the Patriarch because they refuse to mention his name
during church services, a decision which has infuriated Bartholomew.

With a sense of relief from the courts decision, Abbott Methodios
said, "We are obligated in the times we live to defend our rights as
human beings first and then as monks. We look for a peaceful end
to this conflict. We just want our regular life back."

Mount Athos is the autonomous spiritual center of the Orthodox
Church, where the monks are considered defenders of the faith.
The Esphigmenou Monastery established in the first millennium, is
where the great St. Gregory Palamas was abbot, and where
St. Anthony left for Russia to establish Orthodox monasticism.
Its remoteness and rugged natural beauty attracts pilgrims and
tourists alike, who come to see the art and architecture of the
Byzantine Empire

The Monastery's library houses 372 original Christian manuscripts
codices and 8,000 books some dating back to the 4th Century.
The treasury includes numerous religious articles such as rare
13th Century mosaic icons and relics of saints. For over a
thousand years the monastery has provided a place of prayer
and peace for those who chose the monastic life.

Photos and background info available on:
www.esphigmenou.com