Esphigmenou Monastery

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Holy Royal and Stauropegic Monastery of Esfigmenou is a monastery on the peninsula of Mount Athos, Greece, which has broken from the mainstream Christian Orthodox church since 1964[1]. It has existed as a monastery with this name since the 10th century. It is said that the name of the monastery traces back to its founder, an anonymous monk who used to firmly tighten his belt.

The monastery is inhabited by approximately one hundred monks who strictly follow the Athonite monastic tradition. An article in the Kathimerini Greek daily has recently described the monks as "Armageddon-minded" zealots, who are "unread and incurious about the world beyond" and see the Pope as "the personification of evil"[2].

The monks there have broken with the Patriarchate of Constantinople over what they decry as violation of the doctrines of the Church, with regards to the Patriarchate's ecumenist policy and its relations with non-orthodox Christians. In 1972, they raised black flags to protest against the meeting of Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople and Pope Paul VI, where both parties lifted mutual excommunications exchanged during the Great Schism of 1054. The monks have found themselves under threat of eviction from their monastery under the administrative rules of the Athos community.

The monastery's abbot, Methodius, recently stated that the monks of the Esphigmenou Monastery do not want the fifteen million euros offered to the monastery by the European Union, declaring that whoever offers so much money surely wants to receive something in exchange. In fact, it is doubtful whether the monastery would have been able to receive such European funds, in light of its on-going dispute with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, under whose jurisdiction the monastic republic falls.