This report appeared over the name of the Archimandrite Gregory on one of the Orthodox news lists and is reproduced here for your information. FoMA takes responsibility neither for the views expressed in it about the various issues and politics nor for its accuracy.

We are sad to announce that the abbot of the Holy Monastery of Esphigmenon on Mount Athos, Archimandrite Evthymios, has reposed in the Lord last night. He could be considered one of the leading Zealots of the Holy Mountain, being abbot for many decades of Esphigmenon, one of the 20 Great Monasteries and the only monastery which does not commemorate the Ecumenical Patriarch.

In his recent history, he resisted all efforts by Patriarch Demetrios of Constantinople to force his monastery to commemorate him. It was under his abbacy, that when threatened by the Greek Police with forcible eviction, because of his resistance to Demetrios, that he made a huge black flag, which he draped over the north wall of the monastery facing the sea, where there sat a Greek Navy Cruiser. The inscription on this flag which said, "Orthodoxy or Death", has become renowned.

He was a very coorageous defender of Orthodoxy in the many years of his abbacy. With regard to the deposed and false Synod of Cyprian of Fili and his resistors, Father Evthymios strictly forbade any kind of communion with them, both with regard to his monks, and his many spiritual children throughout Greece and America.

The last trial which he had to endure, which has recently affected all the Old Calendarists of the GOC, was the controversy over the ordination of Fr. Paul Stratigeas of Astoria. Father Evthymios was sent evidence of f Fr. Paul's ecumenism, slander and forgery against myself, (Fr. Gregory), and that, together with other information which he had, convinced him to protest the ordination of Fr. Paul. With regard to the infamous charter, which emerged after the ordination of Fr. Paul, Fr. Evthymios vehemently opposed it, so much so, that even a division was created in his monastery.

We pray that the monastery will elect an abbot who will follow in the footsteps of Fr. Evthymios, who highly respected Metropolitan Kallinikos of the Twelve Islands, and his courageous stand against the heretical leanings of the Synod under Chrysostom II Kiousis.

In Christ,

Archimandrite Gregory