Russian monastery in Greece Revives

30/9/2011

Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev intends to form a board of trustees and a fund to support the St. Pantaleon Monastery at Mount Athos, Greece.

Populated mostly by Russian monks, this monastery is one of the world’s main sites of pilgrimages for Russian Orthodox Christians.

In the time of the atheistic Soviet regime, the Russian Orthodox Church couldn’t render much help to its branch in Greece, and the monastery became desolated. The war between Greece and Turkey in the 1920s and the Greek civil war of the 1940s added more to this desolation. The big fires of 1927 and 1968 destroyed a large part of the monastery.

At present, the St. Pantaleon Monastery is gradually reviving. But it still needs help, Mr. Medvedev believes.

On Friday, the first meeting of the board of trustees took place. Taking part were the head of the Russian Church Patriarch Kirill, several Russian ministers, the mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and the 96-years old abbot of the St. Pantaleon Monastery, Archimandrite Jeremiah.

(RIAN)

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