Vatopedi

The monasteries of Mountain Athos don’t want to pay tax on the rents they collect from properties they own outside the Athos Peninsula.

By appealing to the Council of State they are seeking a return to the tax regime that was in place before 2010, when their income from rentals outside the region was not taxed.

"Hello, Mr Roussopoulos. Congratulations!" said a customer from another table at the taverna in Ilioupoli, where Kathimerini met on Tuesday with the first Greek politician to be unanimously elected the 35th president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). The customer was not the only one to congratulate him.

The famed Abbott Ephraim of the Mount Athos Monastery has fallen into critical condition in his 11th day as a COVID-19 patient in Athens' Evangelismos Hospital.

Two prominent judicial officials were selected to top positions in the Supreme Court on Friday, following a meeting of the cabinet on Friday and despite intense criticism by the political opposition over the legitimacy of the process.

The abbot of the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos, Ephraim, was hospitalized on Sunday as a precaution after a road accident in the region of Grevena in northern Greece, religious news sites reported on Monday.

The car he was traveling in reportedly skidded off the road, most likely due to snowy conditions in the region.

The abbot of the Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos, Ephraim, was in Washington on Monday, where he met with Eugene Fishel, division chief of the US Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and special adviser to Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell and George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary for Europe.

"Mt. Athos is a truly spiritual place," US Ambassador to Athens Geoffrey Pyatt tweeted on Tuesday, commenting on his first visit to the historic monastic community's Vatopedi Monastery.

"I profoundly thank Abbot Ephraim for introducing me to the rich history of Vatopedi on my first stop here," Pyatt said on his visit to the UNESCO World Heritage site in northern Greece.

Greece's Supreme Court in the process of examining a dispute between the state and the embattled Vatopedi Monastery in the monastic community of Mount Athos in northern Greece regarding the ownership of Lake Vistonida and surrounding land in Xanthi.

When large parts of society get hooked on character assassination, it can seriously damage democracy.

An Athens criminal court on Tuesday acquitted all 14 defendants charged in connection with a contentious property swap between the Vatopedi Monastery in the monastic community of Mount Athos in northern Greece and the Greek state.