Persecution of Mount Athos' Esphigmenou Monastery by the EP

[nickg]

BREAKING NEWS: October 11, 2006

Thessalonica, Greece. A dark and black day for the judicial system in Greece, against all supporting evidence that the monks are not schismatic, nor illegally occupying their own monastery, the court ruled against the monks of Esphigmenou and sentenced each of the monks to two years in jail.

http://www.esphigmenou.com/


Can anyone confirm the accuracy of this? Does this mean ALL monks at that monastery have to serve jail time?

[Fr. Panagiotes]

The nine monks who were found guilty will not have to serve any of their 2 year sentence in jail. It was a "suspended sentence". This is just one more of the daily attacks of Patriarch Bartholomew against the fathers of Esphigmenou Monastery.

The Patriarch as well as the Metropolitans of the Church of Greece will do anything in their power not to offend their "brother" the Pope. A Greek Metropolitan recently appeared on a Greek TV talk show to defend his assertion that it is wrong to call the Pope a "heretic". The Fathers of Esphigmenou have rallied all those who remain faithful in Greece and in this way the Monastery has become a threat to Constantinople's ambitions to become "Pope" of the East.

[Sean]

Fr. Panagiotes posted this on the HOCNA yahoo group today. The Ecumenists are nothing but murderers and thugs. They use the pretext of brotherrly love with the heterodox only if it brings them worldly esteem and money from ecumenical organizations. Not only are they not Orthodox, but they aren't even decent, civilized human beings! :



Patriarch Bartholomew who refuses to proclaim that the Papacy is in heresy is relentless in his attempts to drive the zealot fathers of Esphigmenou Monastery away from their home.

One of Greece's top newspapers has reported on Thursday, October 10th, that a court in Thessaloniki gave suspended two-year sentences to nine fathers of Esphigmenou. The fathers were found guilty of disturbing the peace because they would not allow a gang of monks and Albanian labourers to take over one of the Monastery's buildings.

This gang of monks were sent by Patriarch Bartholomew who, assisted by the Greek Government, set them up as the legal brotherhood of the Monastery. This has resulted in the seizure of all bank accounts, mail, tractors, boats, etc. The police have been ordered not to allow visitors to the monastery. Athanassios Papageorgiou, a former physician at the monastery, told the court that elderly monks were dying without any medical help as a result of their isolation. All this is carried out by those who wish to silence the voice of the Orthodox Church



In Christ,


+Fr. Panagiotes

[尼古拉前执事]

Dear Sean,

He also posted it here in the monastics section at http://EuphrosynosCafe.com/forum/viewto ... 8054#38054

[Priest Siluan]

From "Paradosis":

The struggle of Esphigmenou Monastery has entered a new phase. The
impostor monks of Patriarch Bartholomew, who attacked, with
sledgehammers, the Konaki at Karyes last November, took the
Esphigmenou
Monks to the Greek Courts. This they did at the behest of
Bartholomew,
to get the Greek secular courts involved and to get a decision
favorable to them. This decision would then involve the secular Greek
Government in the equation, and increase the Greek governments
involement in a purely religious affair dealing with Schism and
Heresy,
a charge leveled against the Esphigmenou monks by Patriarch
Bartholomew
in 2002.
The Greek Courts, on september 29,2006 heard the case, but did not
render a decision on the same day, as it is their usual practice, but
adjourned until the 11th October 2006.
The court case had gone very badly for the "impostor monks".

However, after the adjournment was over, the court convened on 11
October, declared the victims, not the sledggehammer attakers, guilty
and sentenced them to two year prison terms, suspended.

This means, that the Esphigmenou monks, can not act at all, even to
defend themselves, lest they be found in contempt of court and be
carted off to jailed.

All this is the work of Mr. Bartholomew, who is determined on getting
the fathers of Esphigmenou out of their monastery and take over their
property and instal his "impostor monks."

This week Mr Bartholomew is touring Athens and is being fete and
honored by the National Bank of Greece and members of the Greek
Government.
On Thrusday or Friday he is to attend a Concert at the Music Palace
in Athens.
This Saturday and Sunday, he will be on Mt. Athos, taking part
in various services.
On Sunday, he is to take part in the groud breaking ceremomy of
laying the cornerstone for a new edifice to be built for
the "impostor brotherhood," on seized land which belongs to the
Esphigmenou Monastery and which they have taken possession of
with the complicity of the Greek Government of Foreign Minister Ms.
Dora Bakigianni under whose ultimate control everything on Mt. Athos
is, the police, coast guard and civil authorities who take their
orders to blockade the Esphigmenou Monastery, for (3) three years now
and not permit food medicine, fuel oil, doctor visits or visitors
from entering.
The Greek Government sees the Patriarchate as one of its embattled
institutions, in Turkey, and they therefore, do not want to appear to
go against it, in anything, for fear this may encourage the eternal
enemies of Greece, the Turks, to also mistreat it. Mr. Bartholomew is
using this fear of the Greek Government to harm Orthodoxy and get his
way on dealing with legitamate concerns about the Orthodox Faith,
presented by the Orthodox Faithful.
artholomew is attempting to uproot any Orthodox resistance and become
Pope of the East. He will not succeed if all of us are vigilant.
By common consensus of the Holy and Sacred Canons and the Holy
Fathers of the Church, Mr. Bartholomew is a heretic.

He should be replaced.
Mr. Bartholomew, knows well who the Orthodox are and as heretics in
the past have done ( ex: Arians 326-380; Iconoclasts 725AD -840AD;
John Bekkos 1280 AD under similar circumstances as
today, visited Mt Athos with any army and burned, hanged and drowned
all those who opposed his heretical action. Today all those fathers
who were harmed by Mr. Bekkos, are honored as saints of the Church;
Barlaam and Akyndinos 1341-1353AD against St.Gregory Palamas,abbot of
Esphigmenou who was jailed for four years because his accusers
prevailed with the then Synod to condemn him as guilty-as Greek
Courts today- (similarities with current verdict against Esphigmenou
monks.)heretic Bartholomew, is trying to repeat the history of the
heretics of the past.
He is has harmed Orthodoxy and now is trying to harm the Esphigmenou
fathers.

Shame on him, and all those who support and encourage such
unchristian and unorthodox actions and blasphemous acts, whether they
be bishops, priests, monks or lay people.
I ask all Orthodox faithful and friends, who care about our Orthodox
Faith, to email your deep concerns to the Foreign Minister in Greece
and ask her to stop the ground breaking of the Esphigmenou plot which
Mr. Bartholomew and the "impostor brotherhood" have scheduled for
this Sunday. It is in Ms. Bakogiannis power to do this.



Send your emails and encourage any Orthodox Christian wherever they
may be around the world, to stand up for our Orthodox Faith and not
the heretical one put forth by Mr. Bartholomew and his heretics
accomplices.
John Rigas
Please e-mail Ms. Dora Bakoyiannis
(http://www2.mfa.gr/www.mfa.gr/MailForm. ... ture=en-US), the
Foreign Minister of Greece, under whose authority the Greek Police in
Mount Athos enforce the blockade and demand an immediate end to these
inhuman actions. Please also e-mail the Ecumenical Patriarch
(Patriarchate@...) and ask him to end his Un-Christian
actions
and show love toward the monks of Esphigmenou.

[尼古拉前执事]

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Armed Greek Police plan to forcibly remove monks

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 spiritual disagreement they have with him.

This week the Greek government announced it would persecute the monks for embezzlement. This is a fundamental abuse of power that may be commonplace in the world’s most repressive dictatorships, but not something we expect from a free and democratic Greece. The charge lacks credibility, as it seems the prosecutor has forgotten that in an earlier round of the government’s campaign of harassment and intimidation, they confiscated and emptied all of the monastery’s bank accounts.

The Greek Government, acting under Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyiannis, has blockaded the delivery of food, medicine, fuel oil and have denied access to doctors seeking to provide urgently needed medical care to the elderly monks. They have cut the monastery’s telephone lines in a clumsy attempt to cut off their communication and hide their persecution from the outside world. They have confiscated their tractors so they cannot grow food to sustain themselves. They have expelled workers who have worked at the monastery for years, and voided their pensions and government benefits for providing help to the monastery.

The abuses of human rights to it own citizens by the Greek government and Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyiannis, could go on for pages.

Last week, in a display of judicial backwardness found only in banana republics, the Greek Court in Thessalonica found the monks guilty of the absurd charge of “disturbing the peace” and of being illegal occupants of their monastery home for 1500 years, while simultaneously allowing those who attacked the monks with sledgehammers to go free.

As Patriarch Bartholomew and the government of Greece descend further into the pit of backwardness and medieval religious persecution, the protests from religious leaders and lay people around the world are growing. On October 13th, Bishop Stephen, primate of the Italo-Greek Orthodox church, wrote to Patriarch Bartholomew “your treatment and persecution of the monks of Esphigmenou is a scandal to the Church and an embarrassment to all Orthodox Christians throughout the world. It sullies the good name of the Orthodox Church . . . Such behavior and acts are barbaric and take us back to the Dark Ages and for this Your All-Holiness should be deeply ashamed”

In the history of the church over 23 Patriarchs of Constantinople have been condemned for heresy.

This weekend, Patriarch Bartholomew will visit Mt. Athos to lay a cornerstone for a new monastery, on land confiscated from the monastery of Esphigmenou. In an unprecedented move, the Greek government has banned all media outlets from covering the Patriarch’s visit to Mt. Athos. Only the Greek State owned and controlled TV station will be allowed to cover his visit. It is expected that armed police will forcibly remove the monks before the Patriarch's visit to fulfill his desire of a Disney-like atmosphere, where everything looks nice on the surface, but in reality is all fake.

The Greek Prosecutors office in Thessalonica, headed by Vassilis Florides (tel: +30-697-388-5888), has threatened grave consequences to anyone who dares to raise their voice to protest the Patriarch’s actions.

For More Information Contact John Rigas +1-617-971-0091

On the net at www.esphigmenou.com

[joasia]

Deacon Nikolai,

Yesturday, around 1pm eastern standard time, I got a phone call from a close friend who said that a monk called him and told him that at that moment the monastery was being attacked and that the police were breaking down the doors as we spoke. Has there been anything posted about this yet?

Joanna