An unprecedented occurrence in Moscow – Athens relations.
The Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill, has asked for the release of Abbot Ephraim from the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos in Greece.
From a legal news piece, the case is now turning into a diplomatic and “ecumenical” incident.
The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill and Russian government authorities have sent messages to Greek President Karolos Papoulias, expressing his personal concern at the arrest of Archimandrite Ephraim, Abbot of the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos, on charges of fraud.
The Abbot is being accused of “scandalous” transactions between the State and the monastery.
“It is my duty to express our mutual concern to the head of the Greek State and to ask for the release of Archimandrite Ephraim, the superior of the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos, from his detention,” the message published on the Russian Orthodox Church’s website read.
Patriarch Kirill said he was deeply concerned about the arrest of Archimandrite Ephraim.
“I am not questioning the powers of the Greek police and I hope that a fair and impartial judgement will be made with regards to the property of the Vatopedi Monastery. However, I am perplexed by the monk’s arrest. He is not a danger to society and has repeatedly declared his willingness to cooperate with investigators, prior to the case was heard in court,” Kirill emphasised.
The Patriarch also said he was deeply concerned about Archimandrite Ephraim’s state of health, which was not taken into consideration at the time of his arrest.
“In Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine, Moldova and other Countries whose populations form the traditional flock of the Russian Orthodox Church, millions of faithful are alarmed at the measures adopted by the police with in relation to the dominance of the notorious monastery on Mount Athos. The monastery is well known throughout the entire Orthodox world, particularly during the Greek Orthodox celebrations for the Christmas season,” he continued.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also expressed its concern regarding the arrest of Archimandrite Ephraim.
Fr. Ephraim accompanied a group on a month long tour around the Virgin Mary’s Belt in Russia last autumn.
On that occasion, around three million faithful worshiped the sacred object from the monastery on Mount Athos.
The arrest of Abbot Ephraim, the head of the much worshipped, thousand year old monastery, sparked protests in Russia, another stronghold of Christian Orthodoxy, where faithful described the arrest as a violation of human rights.
Ephraim is the highest profile figure within the Orthodox Church to be arrested as a result of the government’s latest crackdown on corruption: a chronic problem that has contributed to generating the seismic debt crisis that has stuck Greece.
But far from quelling the rage of public opinion with regards to widespread corruption, the Abbot’s arrest has sparked a general outcry among religious and conservative circles in Athens and Moscow.
But Ephraim’s case has also reopened another more sinister Pandora’s Box: the scandal which broke out years ago, pointed to the Vatopedi Monastery as the centre of an “empire of affairs involving real estate and a series of companies which were mostly off-shore companies in Cyprus,” Forbes writes.
In 2009, the then Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis announced early elections, which he then lost as a result of the scandal surrounding the dealings between the Greek State and the monastery.
Towards the end of 2008, the Greek media leaked the details of the shady dealings between the State and the monastery. In the past, the Vatopedi Monastery had sued the State for a large area of forest and a lake in the northern part of its territory: in the end, the Court recognised as genuine an old document which, lo and behold, acknowledged the Vatopedi property.
Almost immediately, the Vatopedi Monastery forged a deal with the State: once the forest and the lake were returned to it by the court, these were exchanged with a building in central Athens and a tourist complex near Mount Athos.
“The media claim that the State suffered one million Euros in damages (but during the parliamentary inquiry incredible figures as high as 1 billion Euros came to light)” Forbes commented.
“The affair was facilitated by frequent and friendly visits by Abbot Ephraim to Greek institutions, whose doors always remained open to him.”
The monks at Vatopedi Monastery showed miraculous entrepreneurial flair, the consequences of which were not completely predictable.
What is certain is that they did little good to the Euro zone. On the “inter-Orthodox” relations front, the situation is evolving. Metropolitan Hilarion visited Greece with the blessing of the Patriarch of Moscow and of All Russia, Kirill, and by invitation of His Blessedness the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Hieronymus.