Prince Charles visits troubled Mt Athos
Police and civil aviation authorities in northern Greece were yesterday seeking the pilot of a light aircraft that dropped pamphlets over Mount Athos on Saturday lambasting top Orthodox Church figures as traitors to the faith for having met with Pope John Paul II. Meanwhile yesterday, the heir to the throne of the United Kingdom arrived on Mt Athos for a private visit. Prince Charles, who is staying at the Vatopedion Monastery, has regularly visited the peninsula over the past few years. Saturday’s drop of pamphlets criticizing Archbishop Christodoulos and Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomaios accentuated discord on the easternmost tip of the Halkidiki peninsula, where ultra-orthodox monks in the 1,000-year-old Esphigmenou Monastery declared schismatic by Vartholomaios are fighting a stubborn court battle against their eviction.
