The long-standing struggle of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to defend its preservation from the “heresy of ethnicism” and the independence of Mount Athos, was emphasized by the Ecumenical Patriarch in St. Andrew’s Skete on Mount Athos, last night.
“The Garden of the Virgin Mary (Perivoli tis Panagias), which is under the canonical protection and care of the Holy Great Church of Christ for many centuries, has fought a bloody struggle to protect its independence and to shield itself from the heresy of ethnicism, which was in full bloom at that time, and, unfortunately, still is in some circles. A word to the wise.”
Patriarch Bartholomew emphasized that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is proud of the “discipline, devotion and ecclesiastical morality” of all the Athonites. Addressing the monks, he underlined that the Ecumenical Patriarchate was struggling with such phenomena, the like of which tried to occur in the past and to focus on the monastery.
“It should not be forgotten that the Skete of St. Andrew was a field of conflict of the canonical tradition through the attempt to nationalize Mount Athos, and to use it as a place of cloaking to serve great ideals and alien, for the monastic state, goals and pursuits,” Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said.
