The discordant situation at the historic Sinai Monastery, with the brotherhood of monks now essentially divided into two “camps”, should be met with an immediate commencement of the process to select a new abbot (hegumen), but “under conditions of unity”, Greek government sources said this month.
Athens has a particularly keen interest in the St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, the longest continuously functioning Christian monastery in the world and a pre-eminent Greek Orthodox institution.
Concern over the Sinai Monastery’s fate peaked last May with an Egyptian appeals court decision disputing its uninterrupted 1,500-year status and ownership of the actual compound and property holdings (glebes) on the Sinai Peninsula.
“Civil wars end and peace prevails, as long as amnesty is granted. Otherwise, we may enter a destructive situation where civil strife continues, ultimately degrading the Monastery itself and the entire Brotherhood,” was the statement by one of the sources, as quoted by the Athens daily Ta Nea.
The long-time but now embattled abbot of St. Catherine’s, 91-year-old Damianos, has reportedly returned to Athens, with Ta Nea reporting that a general assembly of the remaining monks will take place at the Sinai Monastery on Wednesday. Another nine brothers accompanied Damianos to Athens over the weekend, where the latter has resided on an on-and-off basis over many years due to health problems.
Archbishop of Sinai Damianos
Such a development, i.e. a general assembly of the remaining monks, would cause further deadlock due to its hasty nature and would exacerbate the already tense climate within the divided Sinai Brotherhood after three months of tension and clashes, the Ta Nea article notes.
According to monks remaining with Damianos, , who holds the ecclesiastical title of Archbishop of Mount Sinai and Raithu, all sides must “follow the process, within the agreed and legal framework,” something they maintain has been echoed by all interested parties, such as the Greek government, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Greece and the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. ”
At least one press report, in ecclesiastical website, claimed that Damianos will officially resign this month.
