The Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos yesterday offered to return some of the properties it obtained in a controversial land exchange deal with the state, as an assembly of monks at the semi-autonomous monastic community issued a statement condemning the deal.

In a letter sent to the Development Ministry, the Vatopedi monks say they are willing to return all the property that they obtained from the state apart from two in Athens’s Olympic Village which the monastery has already sold.

It was revealed earlier this week that the Mount Athos monastery obtained 19,000 square meters of land and eight buildings in the Athens Olympic Village, on the city’s northern outskirts, and a plot of 20,000 square meters with five buildings in Acharnes, also in the northern suburbs, as part of the exchange with the state.

In a deal signed on March 27 of this year, a Cypriot offshore company, Noliden Limited, reached an agreement to buy both properties for 41 million euros after winning an auction. Noliden had only been founded three months before the deal was concluded.

The monks suggest that the state return the monastery’s former land in exchange or pick out other properties that are of equal value.

The monastery claims that it offered in April to return a property in Halkidiki’s Ouranoupolis for some land next to Lake Vistonida in northern Greece but that this was turned down after objections by the mayor of Stagira-Akanthos in Halkidiki.

A preliminary investigation into the initial land deal revealed that the public property given to the monastery had been grossly undervalued, allegedly by up to 100 million euros.

After an emergency meeting of Mount Athos monks on Wednesday, a statement was issued yesterday in which they asked for forgiveness from the Greek people about the “fuss” that has been created over the deal.

“The assembly condemns any actions that prove to be reproachable and does not deem desirable any transaction with secular authorities that are not transparent and which bring about financial or other gains.”