A brother who had sinned was turned out of the church by the priest. Abba Bessarion got up and went out with him, saying, “I, too, am a sinner.
From the Sayings of the Desert Fathers
Monthly Archives: July 2013
Abba Moses asked Abba Sylvanus, “Can a man lay a new foundation every day?” The Abba said, “If he works hard, he can lay a new foundation at every moment.
From the Sayings of the Desert Fathers
Very sad to see this. One of the Schismatic occupiers of the Esphigmenou monastery throwing a Molatov cocktail at the court officials asking them to leave.
Many questioned whether the photo was genuine at first but it seems extremely likely that it is (Analysis here)
Since their split from the Ecumenical Patriarch and entire Eastern Orthodox communion in 2002 these Monks have occupied the Monastery, violently assaulting the new brothers who tried to enter the monastery in 2006, leading to serious casulaties.
They have continued violence against members of the Church who have tried to confront the issue and Government officials since.
Please keep Athos and the Brothers of all Monasteries there in your prayers at this time, and pray that this reaches a peaceful conclusion for the Benefit of God’s Holy Church.
I get the feeling that there are two camps of orthodoxy- hyperdox and lessodox both not only being problematic in their own right but both saying the other is not orthodox. This is going to rip us apart if we don’t learn to start…
I always find that you can see these groups and recognise their members online through what they say about the Canons.
You get the extreme groups who follow the Juridicial-Legalistic approach and will throw canons everywhere as though they represent an legalistic code of law (Same as the Latin Code of Canon Law) and quite openly and aggressively challenge others on it. Most people go through this state just after conversion, some never seem to escape.
Then you get the others who will do whatever with little interest in the Church’s position and application of Orthopraxis in their lives as they have personally (and often in ignorance of the Church) decided that being able to call themselves Orthodox Christians is good enough for them. They ignore the Canons, Fasts and everything but the basics of faith because they have probably gotten tired of it. These usually have little interest in their faith and probably went through the last phase and got bored or prideful in other things.
As with Patrick’s point, neither are recognised positions of the Church, though people’s personal temperments (and those of some clergy) tend to create these positions. I always find it is important to approach issues with the Apostolic Church teaching and common sense in mind, otherwise if you choose one over the other you stray from the path into Apathetic laziness or Ignorant aggression.
Varangoi: tikhon-michaelovich: theorthodoxgingerbeard: I get the feeling that…
That awkward moment when non-Canonical groups refuse to recognise a Canonical Heirarch because “went against the Canons.”
It’s like an maths teacher failing you in english because you didn’t spell onomatopoeia wrong.
Loss and difficulties come when God moves away. On such occasions, never look for one reason or other. Instead, know that God has kept away because of your sins: then cling to God, he will show mercy upon you “.
Mar Gregorios of Parumala
1. The brotherhood residing in the historic Monastery of Esphigmenou is schismatic. Not because it observes the Old Calendar, but because it is NOT in communion with any other Orthodox Church or Patriarchate. Thus, apart from merely having ceased to commemorate the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Monastery has also broken off its communion with all the other Monasteries of the Holy Mountain, as well as with all the Orthodox Churches, whereas it has acceded to a full and ecclesiastical communion with one of the so-called “GOC” (Genuine Orthodox Christian) groups, which, let it be noted, have no ecclesiastical communion – not even among themselves. Since then, and to this day, no one is accepted for residence in the Monastery, unless they accept the ecclesiastical communion exclusively with that group, while others are persecuted.
2. Other predominant Monasteries have also interrupted the commemoration of the Patriarch at times and are cautious about the future, however, none of them has ever interrupted ecclesiastical communion nor has any ever acceded to an ecclesiastical communion with outside ecclesiastical groups – and of course none of them has ever been persecuted. On the Holy Mountain there are other zealot monks, who however live peacefully in their cells, without disturbing the Canonicity and the Statutes of the Holy Mountain.
3. The Constitution and the Statutes of the Holy Mountain prohibit monastic cohabitation with heterodox or schismatics.
4. In order for the reader to understand what “schismatic” means, let him note that the illegal occupants of Esphigmenou Monastery regard all of us [canonical Orthodox Christians] as unbaptized and heretics, who have been infected by the heresy of ecumenism. These “unfortunate” occupants have the same opinion about the Elders Paisios and Porphyrios and Iakovos. These occupants aren’t even Hagiorites! The Sacred Community has, since 1974, been striving to secure decisions for the expulsion of the Abbot and the Committee members of the Monastery, who have thereafter lost the identity of Hagiorite monk. It was they who had scorned the decisions of the Sacred Community.
5. For thirty-nine whole years, the schismatics have been exploiting the tolerance of the Hagiorite Fathers, in order to gain recognition.
6. The illegal occupancy of Esphigmenou Monastery, apart from being an ecclesiastical problem, is also a NATIONAL one, because if it were permitted for every Monastery to excise itself from the Sacred Community, then it would be quite plausible for them to invoke reasons of faith, or conscience, or national reasons, etc., to excise their Monasteries and to accede unhindered to other ecclesiastical or national jurisdictions, with catastrophic consequences for the Holy Mountain, the Church, and the territorial sovereignty of our land. If the prohibition of cohabitation with heterodox and schismatics on the Holy Mountain were to be recognized as an offence to one’s religious freedom, then soon after, we will also see the establishment of Papist monasteries and Protestant foundations on that Holy Ground.
7. Of course they are not persecuted for not condescending to accept European funds (as they continually tout), because even if they wanted to accept those funds, they would not be eligible because they do not have the right to administrate anything in the name of the Monastery that they are illegally occupying. Subsequently, their supposed “heroism, in not accepting European funds” becomes incredibly absurd and mendacious, when its ulterior motive is to arouse feelings of sympathy and admiration among the unsuspecting, for their controversial asceticism, which is proven even more self-discrediting if one were to consider the very respectable influx of Drachmas, Euros and Dollars pouring into the Monastery for the group’s needs for propaganda, for publicity, for court procedures, etc., while these individuals have retroactively cashed in (and then continue to illegally demand) the annual State funding in the Monastery’s name.
8. The matter is rendered even more controversial and a mockery, when one considers how these supposed “anti-Europeanists” have – through their supporters – already addressed the Human Rights Committee in Geneva, the Political Committee of the European Commonwealth in Brussels and Luxembourg, the International Union of Legists in Milan, etc., while also threatening to appeal to the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, thus stirring up the “Franco-Latins” (as they call them) against the Holy Mountain and our homeland.
10. The illegal occupants not only obstruct the instruments of law and order from entering the space of the Monastery; even the 10th Supervisory Committee for Byzantine Antiquities has filed a suit against them, because they did not even allow the archaeologists to enter the Monastery.
11. The illegal occupants are not the “poor innocent guys” they strive to present themselves as in the Mass Media.
12. The Second Magistrates Court of Thessaloniki had sentenced on 8/3/2012 the “ringleaders” of the illegal occupancy of the Representative Sector of the Esphigmenou Monastery at Karyes of the Holy Mountain, to 29 months imprisonment with reprieve, for possession and use of weapons, dangerous bodily harm and simple bodily harm to members of the Monastery’s new Brotherhood. It specifically tried the familiar case of the attack on the Representative Sector of the Esphigmenou Monastery in December of 2006, which had drawn the attention of the Press. The brotherhood of the Monastery hopes and prays that the aforementioned sentence will prove to be helpful, both for the awareness of those severely sentenced, as well as for the active response of the officials in finally freeing both the (illegally occupied) Representative Sector as well as the much-afflicted Monastery. Fanaticism and illegal occupancy cannot have a future.
13. The “poor innocent” monks have striven to calumniate our homeland at an international level. They have resorted to European (aka “Frankish” and “satanic”, per their own claims) instruments, when they themselves accuse the Holy Mountain of being “Europe-lovers”. They have appealed to courts with arguments which – if they were ever to be accepted – would bring catastrophic consequences for the entire Holy Mountain (including Esphigmenou Monastery of course).
14. Abbot Methodios does not even have Priesthood. Athanasios had been canonically chosen and enthroned, and Euthymios – from 1975 up until 1999 – had at least been ordained by a hierarch with canonical ecclesiastical communion. On the contrary, the present “abbot” Methodios does not even have that!
15. Their propaganda claiming “persecution” caught on; given that it was illegal for them to ask for special “residence visas” in the name of the Monastery, they claimed this as “forbidden entry” for their pilgrims; the tax exemption for imported goods was referred to as “deprivation of fuel for winter” – even though the Monastery burns wood; the “no entry” designated for vehicles entering the Holy Mountain was conveyed as the obstruction of trucks bringing food supplies and subsequently condemning them to die of starvation; they speak of “confiscation of the Monastery’s properties”, of “financial strangulation”, of “frozen bank accounts” upon being asked a simple question – all these being entirely unfounded and inconceivable. They also spoke along the same lines – and in fact overseas – about “their water and electricity supply being cut off” (the first claim being entirely inconceivable and the second simply amusing, given that there is no electricity supply on the Holy Mountain.) Even the observance of laws pertaining to the very sensitive issue of vessels approaching the Holy Mountain by sea – for which the Hagiorites have struggled many years to safeguard – has been referred to as “a blockade from the sea”. They have demonstrated everywhere, with every opportunity, that they are in danger of starving to death (while elsewhere, they claim to have food supplies for two years); that they ask for doctors and medicines but the Greek government refuses to supply them (when this has never happened and has been claimed it will never happen, whereas on the contrary, by “incarcerating” elders and the sick, they themselves are putting their health and their lives at risk):
16. a) By having acceded to a specific group of Old Calendarists, the illegal occupants therefore no longer commemorate the Patriarch. Then again, there are also many other zealots on the Holy Mountain who are not persecuted by the Patriarch or by the State, because of their faith!
17. b) They cannot collect any funds from the European Union, because they cannot administrate the Monastery’s documents and elements, which they are illegally holding.
18. c) They are not being persecuted, given that they are living absolutely unrestrained, doing literally whatever they please, and totally indifferent to the Laws of the State – and of the Holy Mountain, thus putting its status quo at risk.
19. d) They delight in concocting “persecutions” and police brutality – as they had done last September, when they had stated to all the Media that SWAT teams had come up to the Mountain to drive them out. This piece of news was a thorough lie. But they did the same thing in December of 2006, when they had cracked the skull of Fr. Ephraim! In fact, the photo of Fr. Ephraim (shown above) circulated over the Internet as “evidence” of the illegal occupants’ persecution, with the claim that the wounded Priest-Monk was a member of the schismatics.
20. e) The illegal occupants have no communion with any of the other Hagiorite Monasteries.
MYSTAGOGY: 20 Disturbing Facts About the Esphigmenou Occupation Issue
A group of monks on Greece’s monastic sanctuary of Mount Athos who are facing eviction attacked court bailiffs with rocks and petrol bombs Monday, according to civilian authorities on the peninsula in northern Greece
No one was injured in the incident early Monday outside the administrative offices of Esphigmenou Monastery, and no arrests were reported. The bailiffs withdrew from the site.
Cell phone video of part of the incident, taken by the rebel monks and seen by the Associated Press, showed the court-appointed bailiffs using a small earth-moving machine in an unsuccessful attempt to force their way into the grounds of the office at Karyes, the capital of the all-male sanctuary from where its 20 monasteries are run.
About 100 monks in the 1,000-year-old Esphigmenou monastery have been involved in a years-old dispute with the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, over his efforts to improve relations with the Vatican.
The monks have defied court orders to leave the monastery and allow church-appointed replacements to take over the site and the Karyes offices about 25 kilometers (15 miles) to the south.
“According to the information we have received from the police, explosive materials were thrown at the bailiffs,” Aristos Kasmiroglou, civilian governor of Mount Athos, told the AP.
“The law must apply to everyone. And all sides must safeguard the pious nature of the site.”
The Esphigmenou monks – who argue that they are safeguarding centuries-old Orthodox traditions – have refused to leave the complex, and receive food and other assistance from supporters in other parts of Greece.
“They came in the morning and started banging on the doors,” Esphigmenou monk Elder Savvas, who said he witnessed the incident, told the AP.
“We had warned them that if they provoked us, we would respond.”
He did not refer to other details of the incident. But a group supporting the Esphigmenou monks, based in the United States, late Monday denied that the monks had thrown petrol bombs or responded aggressively.
“It appears Greek government officials are trying to cover up their complicity in these lawless and criminal activities by spreading false reports to media outlets,” John Rigas, of the group Friends of Esphigmenou, wrote in an email to the AP.
Rebel Monks Attack Court Officials With Petrol Bombs To Stop Eviction
While gay rights have been gaining ground in the West, they’ve been facing a strong backlash in many countries of the former Soviet Union.
Russia recently passed a law that makes it a crime to give information about “non-traditional sexual relationships” to minors.
Gay rights advocates say the wording of the law is so vague that it can be used to ban gay-pride parades, or in fact, any public discussion of same-sex issues.
Homosexuality was a crime in the former Soviet Union, and it remains so in former Soviet republics such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
The former Soviet republic of Georgia is contending with the aftermath of an episode of mass violence that took place in May.
In Georgia’s capital city, Tbilisi, a mob of thousands attacked a small group of people who were staging a protest against homophobia.
The leaders of the attack? Georgian Orthodox priests.
The episode raised issues about human rights in a religiously conservative country, as well as questions about the balance of power between church and state.
Priests Among Violent Attackers
The incident began when members of Georgia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and their supporters obtained a permit to hold a vigil on the steps of parliament.
They planned to mark the International Day Against Homophobia on May 17.
When some leaders of the Georgian Orthodox Church heard about it, they urged their congregations to come to a counter-demonstration, which was promoted as a peaceful and family-oriented event.
When the day came, it was anything but peaceful.
Led by Orthodox priests, the crowd overwhelmed the police barrier around the small group of anti-homophobia demonstrators.
Video from the clash shows a priest brandishing a stool as a weapon; other priests are heard to curse and yell “Kill them! Kill them!”
Nino Kharchilava was part of a small group of demonstrators that never even made it to the parliament steps.
They were surrounded by counter-demonstrators and threatened until police hustled them into a minibus in an effort to get them away from the mob.
Kharchilava is a project assistant for the Women’s Initiatives Supporting Group in Tblisi.
She says the bus, too, was overwhelmed by attackers, who smashed most of the windows and thrust their hands through the broken glass to get at the demonstrators inside.
“One guy was like, hitting [at] me, and I just tried to communicate and tried to say ‘What are you doing?’” she recalls. “And when I saw the blood around, and I couldn’t figure out whether this blood is mine, or not, and then I realized it’s not my blood, it’s their blood.”
“You know, they were ready to kill themselves [in order to kill] us,” Kharchilava says. “It was really insane.”
Church Condemns Violence, But Doesn’t Punish Participants
The Rev. Mikael Botkovali, a spokesman for the Orthodox Church, brought members of his own congregation to the demonstration.
On a recent day, he sits in the calm baptistery of his church, surrounded by saints painted in the Byzantine style.
Botkovali says the church opposes homosexuality, but it doesn’t seek to interfere with what gay people do in private.
Where the faithful must speak out, he says, is when LGBT people seek to spread what he calls “homosexual propaganda.”
“Religion obliges us to talk to these people and to show them that they’re wrong, they’re sinners,” he says. “Even in the Bible, it’s written about these people that, all of them, they will go to hell.”
But Botkovali condemns the violence and says the priests who led it were rightly punished under civil and church law.
When pressed, he concedes that the church punishment consists only of suspending the priests from serving for a while and sending them to a monastery outside the city until they confess their errors.
After the violence, Georgia’s prime minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, said that those who promoted the violence would be punished.
A Test For The Rule Of Law
But gay-rights activist Irakli Vacharadze says that, so far, the civil punishment hasn’t been strong enough to show that Georgia’s new government is willing to apply the rule of law to such a popular and powerful institution as the church.
Vacharadze is the executive director of an LGBT organization called Identova, or “Identity,” and he was at the May 17 demonstration.
He says that key members of Georgia’s parliament, including the head of the Committee on Human Rights, have declared themselves subservient to the patriarch of the Orthodox Church.
“What does it mean,” Vacharadze asks, “when the chair of the human rights committee says that ‘our statement on the human rights violations will not go over what the patriarch has said’? It’s a theocracy. It’s quite dangerous. We don’t want to turn Georgia into next Iran.”
Lasha Bakradze is head of the Georgian Literature Museum in Tbilisi. He helped organize an online petition against homophobic violence.
Bakradze says more than 12,000 people signed the petition in its first two days online.
The mass violence on May 17 isn’t just about sexual orientation and traditional values, Bakradze says, it’s a demonstration of power by extremists who have made their way into the higher levels of the church.
“I think that the church in Georgia has shown to the government how powerful (it is) … and it’s dangerous, and it’s against Georgian statehood,” he says.
But Archil Kbilashvili, Georgia’s chief prosecutor, says the case is not over, and that priests who were involved in the violence still face charges that could require them to serve jail time.
And, he says, no matter what the outcome, the case will serve as a key precedent.
“We cannot remember when our prosecution office introduced charges against some spiritual leaders,” Kbilashvili says.
LGBT rights groups say they’re still waiting for proof that the government will hold those spiritual leaders to account under the law.
Musings of an Orthodox Brit 