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Meeting Cancelled

January 10, 2012

Sadly we have had to cancel the meeting scheduled to take place on 16 February 2012 at Bridgewater House, London SW1A 1DG. As you may already know from our website or from reports in the press, Abbot Ephraim of Vatopedi Monastery was arrested just before Christmas and has been confined to an Athenian jail since late December pending a trial. The Executive Committee of the Friends has sent a letter of protest to the President and Prime Minister of Greece requesting his release, and there have been similar protests from all corners of the Orthodox world. But even if he is released, it is unlikely that the Abbot will be free to travel in the near future, and the monastery is unable to provide an alternative speaker. We have therefore reluctantly decided that the meeting cannot go ahead.

Also cancelled is the book launch of Mount Athos: Microcosm of the Christian East. Copies of the book will, however, be available at the AGM, which will be held at St Anne’s College, Oxford, on Saturday 16 June.