After the recent complaints by Esfimenou Monastery about a series of attacks and sabotage on their Monastery’s facilities inside and outside Mount Athos and the destruction of their partner’s shop outside Mount Athos, another incident occurred in the evening hours of November 16 in Thessaloniki with a Molotov bomb being thrown against the house of the family of the legal advisor of their Monastery, Dr. Diogenes Karagiannakidis.
The extreme right and the squatters are using each other for their rise by fanaticizing their audience and turning them against the Esphigmenite brotherhood and anyone who comes in contact with them in an attempt to intimidate, exclude and persecute their brotherhood from Mount Athos. “Anti-neotaxites”, hoodlums, and elements of the underworld are used for the campaign of “clearing from…Satan” the brothers and friends of Mount Athos. No one knows how or when their murderous rampage will stop. No one reacts, even the Greek state, which is supposed to protect them.
Since they know that we, as monks in the Church of Christ and have already received the “baptism of blood” from an earlier attack, where the squatters “opened our heads”, have nothing to fear but God, they began to target the community’s lay associates, whom they now follow to their homes.
Right next to their small “konaki” in which they live in Karyes, the existence of occupation continues, with the squatters watching day and night with modern high-resolution cameras, photographing and documenting every lay person who enters it, 50 meters from the Protaton and 50 from the Karyes police station. The brotherhood reminds us that the squatters refuse to leave despite the polite appeals of the police.
“Let the people of darkness know well, says the canonical brotherhood, that we will never betray our mission and the Church of Christ, no matter what they do. Their world has well understood what they stand for and the time of their influence has long since passed. In a panic, they make desperate intimidation movements hidden in hoods.
Yesterday they targeted the legal advisor of the Holy Community, of the Monastery of Megisti Lavra, and of the Monastery of Esfigmenou. A pious man, friend, and protector of Mount Athos. A man who has been working for decades for the “stability of the Church” within Mount Athos, who co-authored with two other jurists the history of the Esfigmenos case 1972-2002, who spoke at a conference in favor of the Monastery, and who wrote a book about Russian claims to Mount Athos. Everyone understands why they want to “get out of the way” a person with these qualifications.
Translation: Petros Vassiliadis, Emeritus Professor of the Department of Theology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, President in Honour of the Center for Ecumenical, Missiological and Environmental Studies “Metropolitan Panteleimon Papageorgiou” (CEMES) and of the World Conference of Associated Theological Institutions (WOCATI)
