Greek authorities are locked in a standoff with more than 100 rebel monks vowing "Orthodoxy or death" after cutting off power, water and food supplies to their monastery and surrounding it with police.
The ultra-orthodox monks, residents of the country's Mount Athos all-male holy preserve, have denounced moves by the Greek Orthodox church's spiritual leader, Patriarch Bartholomeos, to forge closer ties with the Roman Catholic Church and condemned him as a heretic.
Now under an eviction order to leave their centuries-old monastery, the priests have vowed to resist any moves to force them out.
"We will fight with our prayer beads," said Father Methodios, abbot of the Esphigmenou monastery, toying with his rosary. "It has 300 knots, these are our 300 bullets. We wage a spiritual war," he told a news conference this week.
The authorities on Friday ruled out using force to evict the monks in a bid to end the months-long row that has its roots in the 11th century Great Schism which led to the breaking apart of Christianity as Orthodox followers battled Roman Catholic authority.
Mount Athos, a peninsula of dozens of monasteries in northern Greece from which all females are banned, is regarded as Orthodox Christianity's spiritual home.
"We will not use force. But they are fanatics and have broken off communication with the rest of the community," a spokesman for the Holy Community of Mount Athos told Reuters.
Mount Athos authorities have already cut off food, water, fuel and mail to the Esphigmenou monastery, adorned with black flags and banners reading "Orthodoxy or death", in a bid to bring the rebels to their knees.
MONKS SEEK REPRIEVE
The monks are considered the most radical, bordering on fanatical, in their opposition to Rome. They also refuse to recognise the authority of the Greek Orthodox Church.
"We cannot accept seeing the Patriarch, our Patriarch, in this position of giving communion to Catholics, Protestants and some say other religions," Fr. Methodius said.
He has appealed to Greece's highest court, the Council of State, for a reprieve from an eviction that had been scheduled to take place last Tuesday until the legal challenge. A court official said it could be weeks before a ruling.
Although Bartholomeos is based in Istanbul he has spiritual rule over the peninsula that is run by a council of monks representing its centuries-old monasteries. Mount Athos is administered by an official appointed by Greece's ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Orthodox followers, who say they adhere more closely than Roman Catholics to the words and teachings of Jesus Christ, are the dominant church in Greece and mainly eastern Europe nations as well as Russia.