Open letter of the Holy Monastery of Esphigmenou to the 19 Monasteries of the Holy Mountain

(On the closing of the land border)

 

Holy Monastery of Esphigmenou, Mount Athos - Athos

Prot. No.: 4 — July 14, 2025 (N.S.)

Open Letter To the 19 Monasteries of the Holy Mountain

 

Reverend Fathers,

As is well known, on a daily basis since 2005, our brotherhood has been enduring all manner of hardships from our persecutors, the Katsoulierides [the counterfeit brotherhood established by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Karyes]. Repeated lawsuits and complaints, violation of individual freedoms and rights, deprivation of the right to free movement, prohibition of approach and docking at our monastery’s port of the speedboat that carries out a daily route to Mount Athos, deliberate prohibition of supply in food, medicine, fuel, and essential goods—these are only indicative of the calculated measures aimed at our physical extermination.

The culmination, however, of the overflowing "brotherly love" of our persecutors is the operation carried out the day before yesterday—with the consent, as always, of the Holy Community—in order to seal the only point of land passage and supply to our monastery, the so-called "Karaouli," which was indeed accomplished. On the border cement wall, which constitutes the land boundary between Mount Athos and the outside world, on the side of the village of Nea Roda in Chalkidiki, heavy-duty, towering iron railings were added, which in essence seal the suffocating police cordon around us.

Henceforth, it becomes impossible for any kind of humanitarian aid to reach our monastery by land. Bravo, then, to our persecutors and to the fathers of the Holy Community, whom we now ask: Do you perhaps consider the work that has been done an accomplishment? Did you come to the Holy Mountain to engage in works of exclusion and extermination of your fellow monks, or for the salvation of your soul? Do you believe that condemning monks to death by starvation because they follow a different spiritual path will earn you praise in the life to come?

Indeed, the paradox in this case is that, at the very moment you are strangling us, you simultaneously engage in resounding and lofty sermons on love toward the laity, emphasizing to them that Mount Athos is a place of brotherly love and spiritual rest. Our wise people say: “Teacher, you who used to teach…” Mention, even just for form’s sake, when you yourselves ever first showed brotherly love and spiritual dialogue toward the Esphigmenite monks. Shall we remind you? Not even once! On the contrary, the list of measures and sanctions against us is exceedingly rich and lengthy.

We also wonder the following: many of our persecutors are hieromonks. How then, after all that you scheme, do you approach the altar? How do you dare to utter the prayer: "O Lord, send forth Your hand from the height of Your dwelling place and strengthen me for Your present ministry"?

What strengthening for the Divine Liturgy is God to send to one who is unbrotherly and unyielding? Then, before you put on your priestly vestments, you wash your hands in the Holy Lavabo, saying the prayer: “I will wash my hands in innocence…” and elsewhere, “But as for me, I walked in my innocence.” Woe to you! What innocent hands, what innocence? Are you completely blind? You are responsible as moral instigators even for the death of our brethren, and you, without shame, dare to celebrate the Liturgy?

But even for all of you who are simple monks, with what hands do you hold your prayer rope or lift up your hands in prayer and proclaim, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us”? Did you, perhaps, have mercy on your brothers? No! How then do you have the audacity to invoke divine mercy? We are sorry to mention it as an example, but it is utterly confirmatory.

You resemble, dear persecutors of ours, the Scribes and Pharisees, who on the one hand did not wish to enter the Praetorium, supposedly so as not to be defiled, but on the other hand signed the unlawful death sentence of the sinless Jesus. So do you… “brethren”! On the one hand, hollow, shallow, Pharisaical sermons about love for one’s neighbor, and on the other, within the hall of the Holy Community, you approved the construction of the project at Karaouli, as well as so many other inhuman measures against us, and you signed, as other Pontius Pilates, our physical extermination through our death by starvation! When on the Day of Judgment you hear the Master say the Gospel saying, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me” (Matt. 25:40), what defense will you give at that dreadful moment, wretched ones?

Your great accuser then will be the disciple of love, the Son of Thunder, John the Theologian, who tells us: “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from Him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:20–21). What, then, will you say in your defense?

We do not become indignant over the lack of necessities. The man-befriending God, who has mercy and nourishes us from His own rich gifts, will provide something for us as well, despite you, so that we do not die from the deprivation of material food. Our deprivations strengthen our resolve and confession, they bring us spiritual joy, militant awakening, a greater desire for the acquisition of heavenly goods, and spiritual gladness. But for your own spiritual path, we are grieved and we mourn.

We wish you sincere repentance as soon as possible!

Intercessor before the Lord,

The Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Esphigmenou

Archimandrite Methodios and my fellow brethren in Christ

Translated from the original Greek.