The “ball has been returned to the police by the Holy Community of Mount Athos over the possible scenario of intervention of a large number of police officers with heavy vehicles in the Monastic State, in order to execute a court order and remove the monks of Monastery of Esfigmenou from the representative office and the main building of the monastery.

Yesterday’s meeting discussed the request of the Hellenic Police as outlined in the leaked document, which essentially announces the planning of the intervention. Among other things, the request of the police was characterized as “vague” and it was decided to ask for its concretization in order to bring it to the attention of the Holy Bishopric.

The case of the activation of the court decisions for the expulsion of the monks of Esfigmenos from the two buildings on Mount Athos came up again a few days ago. The monks have been classified as schismatics since 2002, when it was decided to expel them from the State of Athos, and since then the expulsion decision has been pending. The new Brotherhood of Esfigmeno, founded in 2005, proceeded to obtain court orders to evacuate the two buildings. In the implementation of one of these decisions, the sad incidents of 2013 were recorded when the monks defended themselves by throwing Molotov cocktails at a bailiff and a crew who broke into the entrance of the old Esfigmenou’s old delegation house (konaki) using a digging machine. Indeed, those incidents led to the monks being sentenced to years of imprisonment, and among those sentenced was the abbot of the zealots, Methodios.

This time the new brotherhood of the Esfigmenos Monastery proceeded to execute two decisions to return the movable and immovable property of the monastery to its members, implemented by the forced expulsion of the zealots from the two buildings. Both of these decisions, of the Polymeric Court of First Instance of Polygyros in 2018 for the properties and of the Court of Appeal of Thessaloniki in 2020 for the movable property, were requested by the monks to be overturned, but the requests for overturning were rejected and have become irrevocable by a decision of the Supreme Court in June 2023. “Now there is no longer any pending cases, all court decisions have been taken to vacate the monastery and the old convent,” circles of the new brotherhood told Voria.gr, noting that last year they did not proceed with the proceedings because the country was in an election period.

A bailiff has now taken over the execution of the decisions and these are mentioned in the document of the Mount Athos Police Directorate, in which assistance is requested “in order for our service to respond immediately and with operational accuracy to a request submitted by a bailiff for the execution of evictions in places of the Mount Athos state”, as stated in the document.

“We don’t want incidents”

During yesterday’s meeting of the Holy Community, many of the representatives of the twenty monasteries of Mount Athos expressed their concerns and worries. “We don’t want anything to happen and cause incidents,” they noted. Mount Athos was traumatised by the images last time, and the sad incidents of December 2006 with images of bloodied monks of old and new brotherhoods being taken to hospital after a vicious scuffle.

In the meantime, deadlines, at least for this period, are very tight. Forced executions are prohibited for the period from August 1 to August 31, as provided for in the Code of Civil Procedure (Article 140A in conjunction with Article 943), so any action by the bailiff to vacate buildings can be taken until next Wednesday, July 31. Otherwise the procedure will be repeated from September.

It is considered certain that a few days are not enough for the police to implement a plan of this magnitude and if it gets the green light from the physical leadership. Sources even said that the law enforcement document was essentially an exploratory one, without the staffs having gone ahead with a plan linked to a possible intervention. The same sources said that there was no information on the subject even to the prosecution authorities. On the other hand, in Mount Athos too, many people disagree with the image of a large number of police officers on the premises especially during this period when the Monastic State is overrun with pilgrims, mainly from abroad.

Regarding the document, some described it as a “firework” considering that by sending such a document, and even communicating it to all monasteries, it is probably difficult to implement any intervention. What is certain is that until last night there was no movement.