Police Besiege Mount Athos Monks

Armed police, bent on expelling a group of maverick monks vehemently opposed to reconciliation between the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, last night began blockading their high-walled settlement on the all-male monastic republic of Mount Athos.

In an unprecedented step the holy mount's civilian administrator called for the police as the rebellious monks vowed to defy an order demanding that they leave the far-flung peninsula today.

"We could hold out for two years," declared a defiant Abbot Methodius, who heads the ultra-conservative Esphigmenou monastery. "We are prepared to fight on even though the authorities have cut off our electricity, water, heating and food supplies."

The 117 monks, the most doctrinally rigid of the 2,000 who inhabit an array of monasteries on the semi-autonomous republic, have denounced the Pope as a heretic.

For years they have shrouded their medieval settlement with a banner proclaiming "Orthodoxy or death" while demanding that the Orthodox faith's spiritual leader, Bartholomew I, tone down his overtures towards Rome.

The two main branches of Christianity have been separated since the Great Schism of 1054. But patience seems to be running out with the monks.

Last month Bartholomew - who, as the Ecumenical patriarch, is based in Istanbul - pronounced the monks "schismatics". As such, he said, the clerics no longer represented the spirit of Orthodoxy and should be expelled - a decision that allowed the republic's state-appointed administrator to step in.

Last night, the Greek authorities said police would remain outside the monastery until "every one" of the monks left.

The row comes amid growing demands that Mount Athos lift its centuries-old ban on females, which extends to animals.