NEWS SECTION, 1
POLISH R.C. HIERARCH SHOWS AN EXAMPLE
THE NEWLY APPOINTED Roman Catholic Archbishop of Warsaw, Stanislaw W. Wielgus, resigned on 7th January after admitting two days earlier that he had collaborated with Poland's Communist-era secret police. The Archbishop had tried to minimise reports of his collaboration, which surfaced two weeks after Pope Benedict XVI appointed him on 6th December, insisting that his contacts with the country’s feared Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa, or Security Service, were benign and routine, but he admitted to deeper involvement when documents from secret police files were published in Polish newspapers that suggested he had informed on fellow clerics for decades, beginning in the late 1960s. In resigning in this way, the Polish Archbishop has shown a greater integrity than many Orthodox hierarchs who collaborated with the Soviet powers and yet have clung to their positions.
MP-ROCA RAPPROCHEMENT PROGRESS
A FINAL RESOLUTION on the signing of the “Act of Canonical Communion” between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which is to take place on 17th May, 2007 in the Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, has been adopted. “Those problems that had still remained unresolved, those issues that it was necessary to reach an agreement upon, have found their agreement and solution. We hope that on 17th May, (2007), in Moscow in the Church of Christ the Saviour, the solemn signing of the ‘Act of Canonical Communion’ and a joint Divine Liturgy (by the Primates of both parts of the Russian Church) will take place,” Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad told journalists in regard to the results of the meeting of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia with the ROCOR delegation. Other news releases have said that the first joint concelebration will be “untraditional,” in that it has been decided that the Liturgy on that day, Ascension Day, will be celebrated with the doors in the iconostas left open as in Bright Week. Many would consider that it will be untraditional for reasons of greater import than simply whether the iconostas doors are left open!
ESPHIGEMNOU MONKS ATTACKED
A NEWS RELEASE from Mount Athos, Greece (20/12/2006) reports: “In a brutal an unprovoked attack, members of Patriarch Bartholomew’s brotherhood launched a pre-dawn assault on the Esphigmenou administrative headquarters building in Karyes, breaking down the door with sledge hammers, and assaulting the defenceless Esphigmenou monks inside, sending four to the hospital. Frs Cleopas, Mardarios, Chrysostom and Ambrosios were hospitalised at Polygero Hospital, 500 miles north of Athens, after having been attacked with crowbars and sledgehammers. According to the attending physician, Dr. Athanaseos Papageorgiou, Fr. Ambrosios has multiple bodily injuries including a fractured skull and remains hospitalised in serious condition. The attackers have been emboldened by the direct, personal support they enjoy from Patriarch Bartholomew. Bartholomew has anointed these men who embrace violence and launched the attack as his chosen brotherhood to replace the peaceful and defenceless monks who have resided in the monastery for over 1500 years. In another example of his backwardness, and his departure from Orthodox Christian teachings, Patriarch Bartholomew refers to the violent attackers as his children, and the Esphigmenou monks they have attacked and brutalised with violence as ‘rebels.’ Already over five ‘rebel’ monks have been sent to their graves during this siege, and now four more have been sent to the hospital. You do not need to be a theologian to understand that Patriarch Bartholomew has totally abandoned a Christian mindset and has embraced a crusaderlike mentality that views violence as a means to an end. The true Orthodox Church always has, and always will, reject violence as a means to an end. It is not the ‘rebel’ monks of Esphigmenou who need to return to the fold, as they have never departed from Christian teaching, it is Patriarch Bartholomew and his followers who embrace violence who need to return to the fold of Orthodox Christianity. The monks of the historical monastery of Esphigmenou, who were attacked by the Patriarch Bartholomew’s monks, reject all violence as unchristian, and have condemned these actions by the Patriarch’s representatives. The monks have respectfully and humbly requested a peaceful dialogue with Patriarch Bartholomew in an attempt to resolve their differences. So far, Patriarch Bartholomew has chosen to deal with the monks in an iron-fisted and repressive manner, preferring instead to persecute them by proxy, using the Greek police and his own sledge-hammer wielding monks to do his work.”
We have no way at present of ascertaining whether the Patriarch is personally responsible for the attack as this understandably impassioned report suggests, but there seems to be a large measure of truth in the accusation as is borne out by the fact that the Moscow Patriarchate, after a being petitioned by the monks, has taken a position in the dispute, cautioning the OEcumenical Patriarchate “to abstain from irrational measures and the use of force.” In its letter, sent to the Chief Secretary of the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, responsible for the external relations of the Russian Church (MP), expresses “anxiety because of the tensions which prevail regarding the Esphigmenou Monastery and threatens to evolve in a confrontation with the use of force.” The American Government has also expressed its concern. Officials of its Embassy in Athens and its Consulate in Thessalonica have been frequent visitors of late to Karyes to get first hand information about conditions. For the Americans, the whole issue is one of human rights. According to a web posting, they are involved because of the pressures which are put on their Government from the powerful lobby of the Old Calendarists in the United States of America. “The Times” reported that seven monks had been injured in the attack. 
