Illegal immigrants break 1,000-year-old monastery ban on women
Posted : Mon, 26 May 2008 17:40:03 GMT
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Athens, Greece - Four female illegal immigrants from Moldova unknowingly violated a 1,000-year-old ban on women setting foot on the all-male monastic community of Mount Athos on Monday. The four women and one man were discovered by monks after they were dropped off by smugglers over the weekend at the jetty of the Lavra Monastery at Mount Athos, located on the Halkidiki peninsula,

The immigrants said they had travelled by speedboat to Mount Athos from the Turkish coast with the help of two Ukrainian immigrant smugglers.

The five immigrants, aged between 27 and 41, said they each paid 4,000 euros (6,000dollars) to be ferried into Greece but insist they had not realised they were being taken to the monastic peninsula.

The monks discovered two of the foreign women at the monastery's tiny harbour on Sunday afternoon and alerted local police.

A subsequent search by authorities and coast guard officials led to the discovery of the remaining three illegal immigrants, who had spent the night on an abandoned beach.

All five were detained by police, pending an inquiry into the case.

Women are strictly forbidden from entering Mount Athos, home to a semi-autonomous Orthodox Christian all male community of 20 monasteries, that dates back to the 5th century AD.
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