Mount Athos, Greece - Orthodox monks traded blows yesterday in the Mount Athos monastic community in northern Greece as a bitter fight between church authorities and a rebel monastery turned violent.
A spokesman for the besieged Esphigmenou Monastery said workmen and rival monks tried to demolish the community's offices at Karyes, the administrative centre of the medieval sanctuary - from which women and female animals are banned.
"They used pickaxes, spades and crowbars to try to break down the door," said Father Neophytos. "They were trying to throw us out."
Police said nobody was injured in the clashes.
In a dispute spanning three decades, the zealot monks staunchly oppose efforts to improve relations between the Orthodox Church and the Vatican.
The spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, has declared the monks in the 1,000-year-old monastery to be schismatics, and ordered them out of the walled compound.
But the 100 monks of Esphigmenou, one of 20 monasteries at Athos, have settled in for a long siege.
However, their supplies are dwindling and the monks' telephone line was cut last month. They are now relying on mobile phones.
The sanctuary is popular with Christian pilgrims.
The Prince of Wales is a regular visitor to Mount Athos and President Vladimir Putin spent time there in August.