Holy Athos is a place of prayer, not propaganda, Esfigmen monastery abbot says of ‘invasion’

The abbot of the Esfigmenovsky monastery commented on the “invasion” of Russian nationalists with banners of “armorial colors” Russian Empire” into the territory Holy Mount Athos.

The penetration of Russian citizens into the main building of the monastery of Esfigmene on Mount Athos was condemned in a message from the abbot of the monastery, Archimandrite Bartholomew, who spoke about this to the Mega channel, the newspaper reports. protothema.gr.

“The war in Ukraine has affected the whole world. When reason and words no longer work, weapons are used. We took note of a video shown to us of several Russians on Mount Athos, led by a priest, holding the flag of the tsarist empire used by nationalists, the extreme right. The video that came into our possession was filmed during the pandemic,” Bartholomew said. “I have seen people holding this flag on Mount Athos many times. Every time they are in front of me, I urge them to remove it because it is forbidden. They illegally use the name of the monastery. I don’t know in what hands this video will fall, and how they will use the name of the monastery. Athos is a place of prayer, not tourism or propaganda,” summed up the archimandrite.

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