Monks injured in clashes at sanctuary

The rival groups of monks, wielding crowbars and sledgehammers, clashed at a monastic building at the Orthodox sanctuary of Mount Athos, the self-governing peninsula in northern Greece where women are forbidden from entering.

Police said seven monks were transported by boat off the peninsula to receive treatment and were released after several hours. No arrests were made but three monks were banned from re-entering the sanctuary.

Yesterday's fighting broke out between rebel monks occupying facilities of the 1,000-year-old monastery of Esphigmenou and a group of legally recognised monks outside.

The rebels - who are not recognised by the Orthodox Church - reacted when the outsiders attempted to force their way into the monastery's offices in Karyes, the administrative centre of the monastic community.

They were trying to begin construction of a new building. The clashes turned violent as the occupying monks attacked the intruders with crowbars and fire extinguishers, breaking a door down.

Esphigmenou's rebel abbot, Methodius, said his monks were provoked. "We were attacked and had to respond," he said. "They should be ashamed to call themselves men of the cloth."

Esphigmenou monastery, one of 20 on Athos, has been the scene of a long-running dispute between Orthodox Church authorities and rebel monks. Supplies to the rebel monastery are brought in by supporters using dinghies from the nearby island of Thassos.

Both Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, leader of the Orthodox Christian church, and Greece's highest administrative court have ordered their eviction, but the monks have refused to budge. In October, a court in the nearby city of Thessaloniki handed down two-year suspended sentences against nine monks and former monastery members for illegally occupying Esphigmenou's offices.