(5 Mar 2001) English/Nat
XFA
A group of six monks, who were evicted from their secluded hilltop monastery outside Jerusalem, are now camping outside its walls.
The Melkite monks are determined to stay until they are allowed to return to their idyllic home in the picturesque monastery of St John in the Desert, where they've lived for 25 years.
They have erected a cross and put their religious icons in the trees.
They say court officials arrived in the middle of the night on Sunday and used electric saws to enter the monastery and forcibly evict the six elderly monks.
The monks say they were physically and verbally abused.
The eviction was the latest episode in a six-year legal battle between the monks and the Roman Catholic Order of the Franciscans.
The Franciscans built the cluster of buildings in the hills west of Jerusalem in 1922.
They leased the site to the Melkites when they first arrived in the Holy Land in 1978.
The Melkites say the building was derelict when they took it over and that the Franciscans want the site back now they have turned it into a popular site for pilgrimage through their hard work.
The monastery marks the area where Christians believe John the Baptist, who baptised Jesus, lived in solitude, eating locusts and honey and drinking spring water.
The Melkites are members of a Greek Catholic denomination loyal to the Pope, who belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church until 1724, when it became Greek Catholic.
Lawyers representing the Melkite monks say the Vatican should have settled the dispute and that the Israeli courts shouldn't have interfered.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Officers of justice not only attacked the door of the church with electric saws, but really the removal of the monks from the church was been made in an undignified way, extremely... they have been insulted. We heard blasphemies, shouting... it was something really terrible."
SUPER CAPTION: Father Elias, Deputy Abbot
Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]
You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Ещё видео!