Alex: Some random thoughts since I am short on time.
I have only one legitimate reason (since I certainly do not believe church gossip legitimate) and that is based on the fact that I lived in Greece for over six years; come from a family that is Balkan potpourri (including Greeks); and I now know that I am more in need of Orthodoxy--especially the masculine Orthodoxy the monks represent-- than Orthodoxy is in need of me, if you catch my drift. In other words, I have met my betters and I am more than willing to learn from them since they have nothing to learn from me. (Protestantism is more spiritually wanting than I ever could have imagined.)
Also, I "need" the monks of Esphigmenou, because without them --and gutsy Christians like them--I would find being a Christian untenable.
For me, Hellenism and Orthodoxy are inseparable, which is why I can't trust Rome, though I hold individual Catholics in high esteem and admire their fortitude and strong moral stand on issues like abortion. Of course, this is an attitude I share with the fathers.
In 1821, the monks of Athos opened the republic to women and children to protect them from slaughter by the Turks. There were many more thousands of monks resident at Athos than there are today--a sign of the times--and many, many of them left the Holy Mountain to take up arms to liberate Greece from the Turks. As you can imagine, many of them lost their lives in the struggle.
Many Orthodox Christians remember the many contributions of the monks of Athos to universal Orthodoxy and certainly are sympathetic to the Athonite tradition, even in this--as Father Seraphim Rose would say--abnormal world.
In many ways--as anti-Catholic and anti-Protestant as the monks may be--for many Orthodox, they are the crown jewels of Orthodoxy, admired even by secularizied Greeks because of their fervent nationalism and contributions to Byzantine culture. (BTW:
Athos is a pan-Orthodox community with many non-Greeks resident in the various monasteries. But all share the Byzantine ethos.)
The Fathers of Athos--better than more modernistic and nominalistic Orthodox--have preserved the patristic and hesychistic traditions, even to the chagrin of more Western oriented Orthodox, the so-called progressives. This reality also makes Athos a holy place inaccessible and incomprehensible to the Catholic mindset, even the Byzantine Catholic mindset since the Athonite "ideology" and spirituality has been lost to Eastern Catholics under the influence of syncretism and heavy latinization. (There are exceptions, of course.)
(On the other hand, Eastern Catholics would respond that theirs is a spirituality of the third way, neither Latin or Greek, but unique to their history and other contingencies.)
(Certainly, Byzantine Catholics can sympathize with the monks on this issue since you are more than acquainted with the negative affect of progressivism and how it has watered down your practice of-- and identification with-- pure Orthodoxy: the pure Orthodoxy of the Byzantine saints you love to quote. But quoting isn't enough. I digress.)
For the members of this Forum, it problably is better that they ignore the events, since it is almost incomprehensible for them to understand, especially when one understands that Greeks and the Fathers of Athos have a concept of ecclesiatical obedience that in more "Evgenikos" than papal. Looking at the events through Catholic eyes will only confuse you. Move on, is my fraternal advice.
Abdur
Who loves St.Jude
