The Crisis of Athonite Spiritual Leadership (2007)

 [Blog Admin. note: the crisis continues and is only getting worse.]

By Ioannis Kornarakis, Professor Emeritus of the University of Athens

 

 

Pope Benedict XVI did not merely take the Ecumenical Patriarchate by storm, but Mount Athos as well, in the person of its spiritual leadership! “Two birds with one stone,” as the people say! The Vatican usually hits its mark in its pursuits and objectives! Sometimes, indeed, it even strikes by... ricochet. At the Phanar, of course, it took aim and triumphantly trampled it underfoot. And it extinguished the beauty of the Orthodoxy of its host! But the darkness of the Phanar, like a black cloud, also covered the spiritual leadership of Mount Athos: the twenty abbots of its Holy Monasteries! The latest Announcement (December 17/30, 2006) of this leadership, which revealed the character of its stance toward the tragic heretical lapse of Patriarch Bartholomew, displays cowardice and confusion and... darkness!

The most recent text criticizing the aforementioned Announcement of the Abbots, written by a small number of Athonite monks (Open Letter II, Orthodoxos Typos, no. 1682/March 23, 2007), constitutes a crystal-clear mirror, of charismatic lucidity, which distinguishes things clearly and exposes the confusion and darkness of the logic of cowardice, since the twenty [correctly: nineteen] abbots “were there in great fear, where no fear was” (Ps. 13:5). Faced with the crime of heresy embodied in the patriarchal stance, they were overcome by the irrational fear of confession: of bearing witness through the Athonite presence!

In any event, as soon as the Phanar of Orthodoxy... was darkened by the triumphant advance of Papism, there emerged the fearful crisis of the spiritual leadership of Mount Athos! This crisis, to be sure, was not entirely unexpected, since for some time already the secularization of its inhabitants had become evident in the manner of life and thought of monks, and even of abbots. Witnesses to this secularization are the numerous pilgrims to the Holy Mountain.

In any case, however, it is widely known that many factors and many causes, over the course of time, allowed many monks, and especially abbots, to become accustomed to the worldly spirit. Moreover, the silence of Mount Athos throughout the long period of the heretical overtures of the Patriarch and the Archbishop of Athens contributed to the formation of an Athonite monastic spirit distanced from the vital problems of the life of the Church; and this very spirit is reflected in the controversial abbatial text [the Announcement of December 17/30, 2006]. That is to say, by what they write, the abbots appear to substitute for their duty of confessing and bearing witness to their Orthodoxy their preoccupation with their monastic duties, and their experience and enjoyment of spiritual pursuits in the services and sacred readings. They are content merely to contemplate the God-loving struggles of the Confessor Fathers!

“We live, as far as we are able, the mystery of the Church and the blameless Orthodox Faith, in accordance with what we are taught daily by the sacred services, the sacred readings, and the teaching of the Holy Fathers in general, as set forth in their writings and in the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils. We guard our dogmatic consciousness as the apple of our eye—a consciousness formed by immersion in the God-loving struggles and the achievements of the holy Confessor Fathers against the variously named heresies.”

Nevertheless, if contemplation of the God-loving struggles of the Confessor Fathers is to engender a desire for Orthodox confession, that desire must also find vigorous and militant expression on those occasions when Orthodox witness is required, both as rightly dividing the word of the Church’s Truth and as a God-pleasing confrontation with the variously named heresies. That is to say, we cannot write, “We desire and strive throughout our lives to preserve the deposit of the Holy Fathers,” while at the same time turning our backs on the patriarchal betrayal of Orthodoxy, especially while being [supposedly] leading figures of Orthodoxy! How, indeed, did all the terrible things that took place at the Phanar to the detriment of the Orthodox Faith leave at rest the dogmatic consciousness of the twenty abbots of Mount Athos, which is “guarded as the apple of the eye”? How did that consciousness not rise up, not become troubled, but instead grow dim and... drowsy? Was that consciousness not shaken by so triumphal a humiliation of Orthodoxy at the feet of authoritarian, heretical Papism—a humiliation accomplished through the maltreatment and profanation of the Divine Liturgy—when, moreover, the Pope was honored by the Patriarch with the Christological appellation, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord”?

By means of its controversial Announcement, the abbatial leadership of Mount Athos shows that it is aware of everything that, up to the present, has been done by the heterodox to the detriment of our Church, and simply records these things in its text “with sorrow,” perhaps with the sense that it is thereby acting in a spirit of struggle! But this mere recording of them—even “with sorrow”—rather betrays a subconscious sense of guilt over the fact that, although they know, they do not act; they do not react militantly against the enemies of Orthodoxy, who, moreover, dwell within the walls!

The twenty abbots of the Holy Monasteries of Mount Athos are likewise aware of everything pertaining to the destructive activity of Uniatism in the Orthodox countries of Europe: criminal acts resulting in thousands of Orthodox Christian victims, as well as countless destructions of Orthodox holy churches! Nevertheless, when referring in their text to Uniatism, they limit themselves to charging the Pope with an “insincere stance” toward the problem of Uniatism, instead of holding Patriarch Bartholomew accountable for his support of the work of Uniatism through his disgraceful act, at the Phanar and in the presence of the Pope, of honoring the Uniate Cardinal Ignace Moussa Daoud (wearing an Orthodox kalimavkion) by presenting him with a gold cross!

By this act, the Patriarch honored and blessed the leading perpetrators of the criminal and destructive work of Uniatism against the Orthodox Church. By this act alone, Patriarch Bartholomew proved himself worthy of having his commemoration ceased!

* * *

What conclusions might one draw from the silence and cowardice of the spiritual leadership of Mount Athos in the face of Patriarch Bartholomew’s tragic lapse into the embrace of Papism? Or what might be the consequences of this unexpected stance of the twenty abbots of Mount Athos for the life of the Church and, above all, for the consciousness of her pleroma?

The consequences of the cowardice and silence of the leaders of Mount Athos in the face of what occurred at the Ecumenical Patriarchate during the incursion of the Papal heresy are perhaps, for the present, unpredictable. Nevertheless, what can be said with greatest certainty today is that these consequences will become manifest not only in our own days, but also in the near and more distant future of the life of the Church, given that this crisis has been inscribed in the consciousness of the Orthodox as an event of indelible and enduring memory!

Ecclesiastical history will preserve it and proclaim it as one of the most momentous events in the spiritual life of the Orthodox Church. It may perhaps judge it to be even more significant than the Patriarchate’s entanglement with the Papal heresy! For the latter is recorded as an external event, which occurred and may perhaps never occur again, whereas the crisis of the spiritual leadership of Mount Athos was hatched as an internal event, within the walls, after a period in which conditions of spiritual decline had been incubating!

Finally, as regards the question of the consequences of this crisis, it should not be considered unlikely that the Vatican will seek to take advantage of this crisis—the cowardice and silence of the leaders of Mount Athos—in order to arrange a visit by the Pope to the very heart of the Athonite monastic commonwealth! And then it is not inconceivable that the monks slaughtered in the time of Patriarch John Bekkos will rise from their graves to be slaughtered, at least once more, in order to prevent the Pope’s visit to Mount Athos!

At that same moment, the leaders of Mount Athos will be kept company by their immersion in the God-loving struggles and the achievements of the holy Confessor Fathers against the variously named heresies!

Lord, have mercy!

 

Greek source: https://orthodox-voice.blogspot.com/2026/09/blog-post_30.html