(Athos Agion Oros) - Two senior monks from the Vatopedi Monastery, which has been implicated in an allegedly corrupt land-swap deal with the state, were yesterday (21st of December 2010) given 10-month suspended jail sentences by an appeals court in Thrace for being moral accomplices to a breach of duty.
Ephraim, the monastery’s former chief monk, and Arsenios, its ex-financial manager, were accused of colluding with Maria Psalti, the former judge of a first instance court in Rhodope, northern Greece, where tracts of land involved in the swap are located. Psalti also received a 10-month suspended sentence for delaying making public a ruling on the ownership of the land.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Monks given suspended jail sentences
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This blog entry was entitled, "Monks Behaving Badly." So far, I am quite unsure as to what their bad behaviour consisted of. Josephus Flavius, do you know? Thanks in advance.
ReplyDeleteBless, Father.
ReplyDeleteThis might prove helpful:
http://blog.acton.org/archives/20496-church-of-greece-country-occupied-by-creditors.html
Their "bad behavior" consisted in out-bargaining various Greek government officials when obtaining compensation for land which belonged to their monastery under an Imperial deed (still recognized as valid by the Hellenic Republic) which had been turned into a nature reserve by the government. Someone took offense and decided in retrospect that the agreement to swap the land for other, commercially valuable land constituted "corruption".
ReplyDeleteLet me change the catchy title.
ReplyDeletethis is pretty illuminating: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010
ReplyDeleteeven if it isn't out-and-out illegal, it's pretty ethically dicey.