[Preorbtat]

ATHENS (Reuters) - At least seven Greek monks were injured on Wednesday when opposing groups of monks in the Mount Athos monastic community clashed inside a disputed chapel. The monks of the Esfigmenou monastery, which has broken away from the 19 other monasteries on the male-only community and refuses to recognise the Ecumenical Patriarch as the head of the Orthodox faith, said they had come under attack.

"We were inside the chapel when a group of monks broke in with sledgehammers and crowbars and attacked us," Father Methodios, the abbot of Esfigmenou, told state television.


"How could they do this during this time of peace, days before Christmas?"
He said the opposing monks had been appointed to replaced them by the community's top administrative body. Three of those injured belonged to the alleged attackers.
The chapel belonging to the monastery was in Karies, the capital of the community in the mountains of northern Greece. The community has been trying to evict the rebel monks for years, saying they had no place there since they refuse to fall under the patriarchate's jurisdiction.

Under Greece's constitution, the Patriarchate has supreme spiritual authority over the semi-autonomous region.
"We did not provoke them. They came to throw us out of the chapel that is ours and we defended ourselves," Father Methodios said. "They hit us and we defended ourselves."
Holy community representatives could not be reached for a comment. Police confirmed seven monks had been taken to a hospital and several of them were being treated for head wounds.


Esfigmenou monks say the 1,000-year-old monastery is theirs. They have also clashed before with police sent to evict them.
The monks have sharply criticised attempts to improve ties with the Catholic Church and the Pope. The Mount Athos peninsula is considered as Orthodox Christianity's spiritual home from which all females are banned.

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THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) -- Two groups of monks clashed on Wednesday at a monastery facility in Mt. Athos, resulting in at least seven injuries, police said.
Fighting broke out between a group of rebel monks occupying facilities of the 1,000-year-old monastery of Esphigmenou, and a group of legally recognized monks on the outside.
The rebel monks, unrecognized by the Orthodox Church, reacted strongly when the outsiders attempted to force their way into the monastery's representative offices in Karyes, the administrative center of the medieval community. They were trying to enter in order 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.
Seven monks were reported injured. Four were taken off the peninsula by boat and hospitalized at Polygiros, including two with head wounds, while three more were being taken to hospital, according to Athos police.
Esphigmenou monastery -- one of 20 in the all-male medieval community in northern Greece -- has been the scene of a long-running dispute between Orthodox Church authorities and rebel monks at Esphigmenou, who bitterly oppose efforts to improve relations between the Orthodox Church and the Vatican.
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 Thessaloniki court handed down two-year suspended sentences against nine monks and former monastery members for illegally occupying Esphigmenou's offices.

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Lord have mercy on us.