Of the 1,700 monks living on Mount Athos, more than 40 have died from Covid.
MILOCHORI, Greece:
In a remote monastery in northern Greece, an Orthodox abbot delivers a blunt message to his dozens of maskless followers: a Covid-19 vaccine is the “sign of the Antichrist.” .
Vaccine skepticism is rife in the north of the country, where clerics and religious play an important role in the lives of their followers, often acting as personal confessors.
Earlier this month, dozens of people gathered to celebrate Abbot Maximos’ naming day in the monastery outside the village of Milochori, west of the nearest town Ptolemy.
Sitting down to a simple buffet, the 88-year-old abbot took the opportunity to bring home an anti-vaccination message.
“Ultimately, only 1,000 people will get out of it,” he warned.
To those present, his words carried divine weight.
Evangelia, a trained geologist in his 60s, said: “Abbot Maximos has been at this monastery for 50 years, he is a holy man.
“He has been my confessor for more than 40 years and I followed his advice. He put me in God’s way,” she told AFP.
Nominally, most of the monasteries are overseen by the powerful Greek Orthodox Church, which was reluctant to encourage its followers to respect anti-Covid measures at the start of the pandemic.
‘Orthodox ideology’
Although the exact number of official confessors among priests and religious in Greece is unknown, it is believed to be more than 1,000.
Chrysostomos Stamoulis, a professor of theology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, says the role of personal confessor is a long-standing tradition favored by devout Orthodox believers in Greece and the Balkans.
“Those who confess must reveal the will of Jesus Christ,” he said.
In November, a prominent Greek actor starring in Eugene Ionesco’s play “Rhinoceros,” one of Athens’ top performances this season, caused a stir when he dropped the lead role in protest. government ban on unvaccinated spectators.
Actor Aris Servetalis has spoken publicly about the importance of confessors in his life, including his decision to play a miracle-working Greek saint in a 2021 film.
“Without his blessing, I wouldn’t have done it,” he said in an interview last year.
Athanassios Gikas, a priest and professor of social theology who also teaches at Aristotle University, said the proximity of the monastic site of Mount Athos – one of Orthodoxy’s most revered sites – makes increase the attractiveness of male saints in northern Greece.
Additionally, many northern Greeks are descendants of Asia Minor refugees, who are traditionally very religious, Gikas added.
A confessor himself, Gikas stresses that spiritual counselors “shouldn’t impose their will” on their sins.
“It takes spiritual maturity to guide someone. Some people sin and need to be punished.”
Professor Stamoulis concurs, saying: “Some confessors have created orthodox ideologies.”
‘Tragic consequences’
Abbot Maximos, who uses a wheelchair, said he instructed his disciples to “refuse to be guinea pigs” by taking vaccines.
“I’m not afraid of persecution. I love God,” he said.
An aide to the monastery asserts that the abbot’s distrust of modern medicine is well-founded.
“He was fine recently until he took medicine. Now he can’t walk,” the aide said.
Of the 1,700 monks living on Mount Athos, more than 40 have died from Covid. Many are passionately opposed to vaccines and have urged tourists to follow suit.
“I will never bless anyone who takes the vaccine,” the abbot of a hardline monastery with more than 100 monks said in an online video earlier this month.
“If this is a democracy, why not let people do what they want?” he asked, accusing authorities of “investment fear”.
In the convent outside Milochori, geologist Evangelia said “none of us here have taken the vaccine.”
“Most of us have fallen ill but we are never afraid. What should we fear, when we are in the house of God?” she added.
However, this advice has been fatal for some in Greece, where the coronavirus has claimed the lives of more than 23,000 people.
Nikos, 57, of the largest city north of Thessaloniki, said a couple in his vicinity were hospitalized with Covid after refusing a vaccine at the behest of a confessor.
“The woman died, leaving behind four children,” he said.
“This is the tragic consequence of the confessor’s guidance.”
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
