desniza

Greek Orthodox nuns hold candles as they take part in an annual procession along Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem’s Old City early yesterday that involves carrying an icon of the Virgin Mary from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to another church at the foot of the Mount of Olives.

Just a few months after news broke about the Vatopedi land-swap scandal, the Supreme Court prosecutor this weekend called for an investigation into another suspicious exchange between the Orthodox Church and the state.

Giorgos Sanidas ordered a preliminary investigation into the transfer of a prime piece of land on the Aegean island of Skyros to a Mount Athos monastery and the purchase by the Greek state, allegedly at an excessive price, of a much smaller plot belonging to the monastery.

Sanidas wants an Athens prosecutor to determine whether the monastery’s acquisition of the 3,700-hectare plot on Skyros should lead to any individuals being charged with defrauding the state. He notes that the court rulings relating to the land transfer “were the result of misleading evidence and testimonies” and therefore are “unlawful.”

The abbot of Aghia Skepi Monastery in Keratea, east of Athens, has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing at least 21 novice monks over the last two decades, police said yesterday.

The 68-year-old was taken into custody after four men aged 18 to 34 went to a police station in Keratea and told officers that the monk repeatedly abused them between 1988 and 2007 while they were at the monastery.

They claimed that the abbot took advantage of the spiritual trust that his novices placed in him. Police said that an initial investigation had indicated that the 68-year-old sexually molested at least 17 other young men.

The abbot appeared before a magistrate yesterday but asked for, and was granted, more time to prepare his defense. First instance prosecutor Eleni Raikou gave authorization for the name of the suspect, Eleftherios Anastasopoulos, to be published.

Anastasopoulos will not be charged for all the alleged attacks, such as the ones said to have taken place in 1988, due to the statute of limitations.

Authorities at the Church of the Virgin Mary on the island of Tinos, one of the most sacred pilgrimage sites in the country, say they have received hundreds of e-mails from Orthodox faithful living abroad and in Greece.

The church authorities said their e-mail address had been bombarded with some 500 messages over the past few days, about the same number as it received during the whole of 2007. Many of the notes have been sent by worshippers who are unable to travel due to health problems or financial difficulties.
 

“The service has been created for people who may not be able to visit the Church of the Virgin Mary ... but who can send their messages which we will bring before (the Virgin’s) icon,” said Metropolitan Dorotheos of Syros who oversees the church on Tinos.

The majority of the messages have been sent from Cyprus, the USA, Germany, Australia and Austria with some 10 percent of the notes coming from Greece. Worshippers can send their messages to info@im-syrou.gr.





 

EUCHOLOGIUM of the cathedral of Otranto with a most interesting Italian-Greek text concerning the ceremony of wedding. Puglia, XII c. (Ottob.gr. 344) 

Wedding ring.
Byzantium.
924 AD.
Louvre.