few years before, just after he had been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. The monks prayed for him; he didn’t die, but instead made a miraculous recovery. He had, however, given them his confession.
By now Doukas thought of these monks less as simple con men than as the savviest businessmen he had ever dealt with. “I told them they should be running the Ministry of Finance,” he says. “They didn’t disagree.” In the end, under pressure from his boss, Doukas signed two pieces of paper. The first agreed not to challenge the monks’ ownership of the lake; the second made possible the land exchange. It did not give the monks rights to any lands from the Finance Ministry, but, by agreeing to accept their lake into the Ministry of Finance’s real estate portfolio, Doukas enabled their deal with the minister of agriculture. In exchange for their lake the monks received seventy-three different government properties, including what had formerly been the gymnastics center for the 2004 Olympics—which, like much of what the Greek government built for the Olympic Games, was now empty and abandoned space. And that, Doukas assumed, was that. “You figure they are holy people,” he says. “Maybe they want to use it to create an orphanage.”
What they wanted to create, as it turned out, was a commercial real estate empire. They began by persuading the Greek government to do something it seldom did: to rezone a lot of noncommercial property for commercial purposes. Above and beyond the lands they received in their swap—which the Greek parliament subsequently estimated to be worth a billion euros—the monks, all by themselves, were getting 100 percent financing to buy commercial buildings in Athens and to develop the properties they had acquired. The former Olympics gymnastics center was to become a fancy private hospital—with which the monks obviously enjoyed a certain synergy. Then, with the help of a Greek banker, the monks drew up plans for something to be called the Vatopaidi Real Estate Fund. Investors in the fund would, in effect, buy the monks out of the properties given to them by the government. And the monks would use the money to restore their monastery to its former glory.
From an ancient deed to a worthless lake the two monks had spun what the Greek newspapers were claiming, depending on the newspaper, to be a fortune of anywhere from tens of millions to many billions of dollars. But the truth was that no one knew the full extent of the monks’ financial holdings; indeed, one of the criticisms of the first parliamentary investigation was that it had failed to lay hands on everything the monks owned. On the theory that if you want to know what rich people are really worth you are far better off asking other rich people—as opposed to, say, journalists—I polled a random sample of several rich Greeks who had made their fortune in real estate or finance. They put the monks’ real estate and financial assets at less than $2 billion but more than $1 billion—up from zero since the new management took over. And the business had started with nothing to sell but forgiveness.
The monks didn’t finish with church until one in the morning. Normally, Father Arsenios explained, they would be up and at it all over again at four. On Sunday they give themselves a break and start at six. Throw in another eight hours a day working the gardens, or washing dishes, or manufacturing crème de menthe, and you can see how one man’s idea of heaven might be another’s of hell. The bosses of the operation, Fathers Ephraim and Arsenios, escape this grueling regime roughly five days a month; otherwise this is the life they lead. “Most people in Greece have this image of the abbot as a hustler,” another monk, named Father Matthew, from Wisconsin, says to me in a moment of what I take to be candor. “Everyone in Greece is convinced that the abbot and Father Arsenios have their secret bank accounts. It’s
By now Doukas thought of these monks less as simple con men than as the savviest businessmen he had ever dealt with. “I told them they should be running the Ministry of Finance,” he says. “They didn’t disagree.” In the end, under pressure from his boss, Doukas signed two pieces of paper. The first agreed not to challenge the monks’ ownership of the lake; the second made possible the land exchange. It did not give the monks rights to any lands from the Finance Ministry, but, by agreeing to accept their lake into the Ministry of Finance’s real estate portfolio, Doukas enabled their deal with the minister of agriculture. In exchange for their lake the monks received seventy-three different government properties, including what had formerly been the gymnastics center for the 2004 Olympics—which, like much of what the Greek government built for the Olympic Games, was now empty and abandoned space. And that, Doukas assumed, was that. “You figure they are holy people,” he says. “Maybe they want to use it to create an orphanage.”
What they wanted to create, as it turned out, was a commercial real estate empire. They began by persuading the Greek government to do something it seldom did: to rezone a lot of noncommercial property for commercial purposes. Above and beyond the lands they received in their swap—which the Greek parliament subsequently estimated to be worth a billion euros—the monks, all by themselves, were getting 100 percent financing to buy commercial buildings in Athens and to develop the properties they had acquired. The former Olympics gymnastics center was to become a fancy private hospital—with which the monks obviously enjoyed a certain synergy. Then, with the help of a Greek banker, the monks drew up plans for something to be called the Vatopaidi Real Estate Fund. Investors in the fund would, in effect, buy the monks out of the properties given to them by the government. And the monks would use the money to restore their monastery to its former glory.
From an ancient deed to a worthless lake the two monks had spun what the Greek newspapers were claiming, depending on the newspaper, to be a fortune of anywhere from tens of millions to many billions of dollars. But the truth was that no one knew the full extent of the monks’ financial holdings; indeed, one of the criticisms of the first parliamentary investigation was that it had failed to lay hands on everything the monks owned. On the theory that if you want to know what rich people are really worth you are far better off asking other rich people—as opposed to, say, journalists—I polled a random sample of several rich Greeks who had made their fortune in real estate or finance. They put the monks’ real estate and financial assets at less than $2 billion but more than $1 billion—up from zero since the new management took over. And the business had started with nothing to sell but forgiveness.
The monks didn’t finish with church until one in the morning. Normally, Father Arsenios explained, they would be up and at it all over again at four. On Sunday they give themselves a break and start at six. Throw in another eight hours a day working the gardens, or washing dishes, or manufacturing crème de menthe, and you can see how one man’s idea of heaven might be another’s of hell. The bosses of the operation, Fathers Ephraim and Arsenios, escape this grueling regime roughly five days a month; otherwise this is the life they lead. “Most people in Greece have this image of the abbot as a hustler,” another monk, named Father Matthew, from Wisconsin, says to me in a moment of what I take to be candor. “Everyone in Greece is convinced that the abbot and Father Arsenios have their secret bank accounts. It’s
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