Evictions at Mt. Athos

News from Greece:

Monastic authorities on the autonomous Mt Athos community have started serving eviction orders to members of a rebel fraternity who have been excommunicated and declared schismatic for refusing to acknowledge the authority of Ecumenical Patriarch Varthomolaios.

Police officers will deliver papers to each of the 100-odd monks residing in the 1,000-year-old Esphigmenou Monastery, ordering them to leave the premises by January 28. This follows a Dec. 26 decision by the community’s ruling body made public on Saturday.

The ultra-Orthodox Esphigmenou monks have regarded the Patriarchate — which has jurisdiction over Mt Athos — as an abode of renegades since the 1964 Istanbul meeting between Patriarch Athinagoras and Pope Paul VI, whom Orthodox zealots regard as the incarnation of all evil. The Patriarchate excommunicated the Esphigmenou fraternity two weeks ago.

More details appear in today's Guardian:

For decades, the monks have shown their opposition to any reconciliation with Catholics by adorning their monastery with black flags and a giant banner reading ``Orthodoxy or death.'' They have referred to the pope as a heretic. . .

It would be the largest-ever known eviction of monks from Mount Athos since the community was founded more than 1,000 years ago. The last eviction, for the same reasons, took place a decade ago and involved five monks living in an isolated hermitage.

Since the eviction order was issued on Dec. 14, authorities have cut electricity to the monastery and prevented the supply of food, heating oil and medical supplies, [abbot] Methodius said.

The monastery's first serious falling out with the ecumenical patriarchate came in the mid-1960's, after Catholic and Orthodox leaders withdrew a series of anathemas - or damnations - issued in 1054.

The monks are now planning to appeal the eviction in court.

UPDATE: An article on 25 Jan in the Telegraph; the monks are still unbending.

Posted by David on January 17, 2003 8:12 PM