From The Ottawa Citizen, 2006.12.21, page A6
SOURCE: The Associated Press
Monks battle with crowbars, sledgehammers: 7 injured in GreeceEvolutionists would expect the religious gene to be extinct in humans by now, with all the wars and such that have been fought over millenia... Darwin must be rolling in his grave!
THESSALONIKI, Greece - Rival groups of monks wielding crowbars and sledgehammers clashed yesterday over control of a 1,000-year-old monastery in a community regarded as the cradle of Orthodox Christianity, police said.
Seven monks were injured and transported by boat to hospital to receive treatment. They were released after several hours, police said.
No one was arrested, but three monks were banned from re-entering the Orthodox sanctuary Mount Athos, located on a self-governing peninsula in northern Greece.
Esphigmenou monastery is the scene of a long-running dispute between Orthodox authorities and rebel monks who occupy the facility. Both Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, leader of the Orthodox Christian church, and Greece's highest administrative court have ordered their eviction, but the monks have refused to budge.
The rebel monks vehemently oppose efforts to improve relations between the Orthodox church and the Vatican.
The fighting yesterday broke out between the rebel monks and a group of legally recognized monks who were outside. The outsiders attempted to force their way into the monastery's offices in Karyes, the administrative centre of the monastic community, to begin construction of a new building.
Occupying monks attacked those outside with crowbars and fire extinguishers.
Esphigmenou's rebel abbot, Methodius, said his monks had been provoked.
"We were attacked and had to respond," he said. "They should be ashamed to call themselves men of the cloth."
In October, a court in the nearby city Thessaloniki handed down two-year suspended sentences against nine monks and former monastery members for illegally occupying Esphigmenou's offices.
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