The Feast Day of the Monastery of Esphigmenou presided over by Metropolitan Ioakeim of Bursa

On Thursday, 29 May 2025, on the occasion of the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, the Holy Monastery of Esphigmenou celebrated the feast.

The feast day which was celebrated at the Representative Church of the Monastery of Esphigmenou in Karyes, was presided over by His Eminence Metropolitan Ioakeim of Bursa, Hierarch of the Ecumenical Throne.

The abbot of the Holy Monastery of Esphigmenou, Archimandrite Bartholomew, spoke, during the evening meal of the feast day, about the violence that brothers of the Monastery have recently suffered.

Specifically, on 22 May 2025, in the afternoon, while three members of the brotherhood of the Holy Monastery of Esphigmenou were clearing the grass from a flower bed located near the occupied part of the Monastery’s representative office in Karyes, as part of the annual preparations for the monastery’s upcoming feast of the feast of the Ascension, suddenly and for no reason, they were attacked by two unknown individuals.

The attackers came out of the occupied monastery building and, while wearing monastic clothing, do not belong to Mount Athos or the Eastern Orthodox Church. One of them injured a member of the brotherhood of the Esphigmenou Monastery.