THE MONKS ARE PREPARING FOR THE DEFENSE OF THE HOLY MOUNTAIN! Dr. Đurić: "Does this mean that NATO is at war with Orthodoxy?" (1/2)

The vow of the monks of the Esphygmen monastery of Mount Athos "Orthodoxy or death" on the medieval walls guarding the sanctuary and on the flag displayed on the high tower of the last defense is the real reason why the strict and poor monks are under siege by Greek police special forces who announce the invasion of the monastery.

As a formal reason, they cite the report of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople and his followers that the Esphygmenians are "training Russian commandos."

The conflict between the Esphygmenians and the Patriarchate of Constantinople began in 1964, when the then Patriarch Athenagoras met with the Pope in Jerusalem and began the first ecumenical talks after the great schism of the churches in the 11th century.

This caused indignation among the monks of Mount Athos, especially in Esphigmen, where the patriarch was declared a "traitor to Orthodoxy, a unionist who serves the interests of the West, a NATO-patriarch" who has not been mentioned in prayers since then and is not recognized as the head of the monastic republic. Then, for the first time, the army and the police were sent to Athos to "discipline" the monks, and in 2013, the last siege of Sphygmen took place.

The world was then shaken by a video of a monk's skinny hand threatening the besiegers with a Molotov cocktail through a window on the walls.

The Esphygmenians barricaded themselves, and the police cut off their supply of food and medicine, which cost the lives of about 20 old and sick monks.

The siege was broken without official explanation, but Mount Athos lore says that the Esphygmenians called the police commanders to enter the monastery and led them into the basement where they found the monks surrounded by butane cylinders from which the gas hissed ominously. The Sphygmenians said that they would rather blow up themselves and the sanctuary than leave it to "antichrists and ecumenists". And, the siege was lifted.

Since then, the Esphygmenians have enjoyed great popularity, so long-term sieges have been abandoned. The person behind the current attack asked the Holy Epistasia, the government of Mount Athos, for permission for a violent police incursion into the monastery.

According to the available information, the representatives of the most respected monasteries of Mount Athos that make up the epistasis: Velika Lavra, Vatopeda, Iviron, Hilandar and Dionysiat do not want to allow sacrilege and violence.
Historians date the beginning of the attack on the Orthodoxy of Mount Athos to the time of the Greek military junta, which established a dictatorship in 1967 with the help of the USA, in accordance with the Truman Doctrine.

- The Greek Orthodox Church was considered a traditional opponent of Western values, so the putschists removed the Archbishop of Athens and the entire synod and appointed their own church officials instead. The patriarch of Constantinople at that time was Athenagoras, a former American archbishop, who arrived on the throne in Turkey on Truman's presidential plane. The director of the CIA William Donovan himself gave him an official and public recognition for the anti-Russian policy he led - says Dr. Đurić.

The Patriarch of Constantinople is, from a legal point of view, only the spiritual head of the Orthodox Greeks in Turkey, of which there are slightly more than 2,000, and he is of the same rank as the patriarchs of other local churches.

Bartholomew abuses the formal ancient title of the Ecumenical Patriarch and claims that he is the supreme head of all the Orthodox, which is why he received the mocking nickname "Orthodox Pope" from his opponents.

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