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Letter by the Sacred Community of the Holy Mountain declaring their support and sympathy towards the Elder Ephraim and the Vatopedi Brotherhood
 
 

 

 

 

Karyes, 13th December 2011.

 

Protocol No. Ö.4/5/3069

 
Ôï His Eminence the Holy Abbot
of the Sacred Monastery of Vatopedion,
Archimandrite Ephraim
and his honorable Brotherhood,
Vatopedion
 
 

With our wholehearted brotherly greetings to Your Eminence,

It was with immense sorrow and great surprise that we were informed of the issuance of the Warrant for Your arrest and the immediate remanding into custody of Your Eminence.

The hurried issuance and dispatch of the said Arrest Warrant on the Eve of the feast of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the inexplicable haste as well as the immediate mobilization of a powerful police detachment along with the urgent dispatch of a Prosecuting Attorney, in defiance of Hagiorite tradition, in order to arrest You as if You were a criminal and an extremely dangerous one,  caused us, as well as the whole of the Hagiorite population, profound grief. These actions are an insult to the religious sentiment of the faithful, to our most Holy Church, and Hagiorite Monasticism.

Holy fathers and brethren,

We all share in the pain and the magnitude of this unprecedented ordeal and the cross that You are bearing during these holy days, in which Your Spiritual Father is unjustly abused and led to detention, albeit well-known since His youth for His love for the Church and Monasticism and the years he has been offering, both to Your Sacred Monastery as well as to the Holy Mountain in general.

Thus, in his person, the entire Holy Mountain Brotherhood is insulted.

In participation and in common grief for this ordeal of Yours, we are expressing through the present, officially sealed by the Sacred Community letter, the wholehearted support of our Sacred Community, and we surround the holy Abbot with our undivided trust, respect, and our in-Christ love.

We pray from the heart that our Lord, Who was incarnated for our sake, along with the unalterable mediations of the Trustee of our Holy-named Locus - the Lady Theotokos - will strengthen You all, will ensure a favourable outcome for this ordeal and divert the wills of the wicked one and of the adversaries of the Church. 

With all the aforementioned, we remain, with bounteous love in Christ and in brotherly love.

 

(signed by)

All the Representatives and Overseers
in the common Meeting
of the twenty Sacred Monasteries
of the Holy Mountain Athos
 
 

 

 

Translation: KN

Article published in English on: 7-1-2012.

Last update: 7-1-2012.

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