Rival monks battle over monastery

Rival groups of monks wielding crowbars and sledgehammers clashed over control of a 1,000-year-old monastery in a community regarded as the cradle of Orthodox Christianity, police said.

Seven monks were injured and transported by boat to receive treatment. They were released after several hours, police said. No one was arrested, but three monks were banned from reentering the Orthodox sanctuary at Mt. Athos, on a selfgoverning peninsula in northern Greece.

Esphigmenou monastery is the scene of a long-running dispute between Orthodox church authorities and rebel monks who occupy the facility and refuse orders to leave.