The newly elected Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit Greece, and especially the Holy Mountain, this Easter season. The Russian leader has visited in the past many times the Garden of the Panagia, showing interest in all the monasteries of Mount Athos there, not just those that have direct reference to the Russian Church and the Patriarchate of Moscow.
In the days of Vladimir Putin in Russian leadership, moreover, Orthodoxy was able to breathe again in one of the most important countries of the world ... both under Patriarch Alexius and under the current Patriarch Kirill. The Russian president himself has not hidden his interest in the prospect of setting up an Orthodox arch which connects Russia and Greece.
Putin's visit to Greece during the Easter period gains additional importance because of the timing. Greece will be in its election season, with the New Democracy to the fore as a political force that will emerge from the polls in the governance of the country.
With the new national backdrop that will form, the new government will be asked to develop a series of actions and initiatives to mitigate the negative impacts on society in implementing the measures of the Memorandum. In this sense, Russia's Vladimir Putin is willing to contribute decisively, and as it became clear months before the meeting they had in Moscow with the Russian leader Antonis Samaras.
Furthermore, the visit of Vladimir Putin in Greece comes at a time when the still open question of the abbot of the Monastery of Vatopaidi Ephraim, who remains in the prison Korydallos, exists. Fresh and positive impressions of public intervention were made in favor of Fr. Ephraim by the Patriarch of Moscow Kirill, and the Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos