Athens - Two Greek Orthodox monks on Monday refused to hand over their accounts to a parliamentary commission investigating a Mount Athos monastery property scandal that has so far forced two ministers to resign.

The controversy surrounds a deal in which the Greek state exchanged valuable land with the influential Vatopedi Monastery, one of 20 self-governing Greek Orthodox communities on Mount Athos in northeastern Greece.

The monastery swapped 8 000 hectares of forest land around Lake Vistonida, a protected wetlands in the north of the country, for 800 hectares of coastal land and a large building in the 2004 Olympic Village, which it promptly sold to private developers.

The monastery's Prior Ephraim, who said he did not want "to act like a suspect," and Father Arsenios have refused to be questioned and have only submitted written depositions.

"The attitude of the two witnesses in not respecting parliament is unacceptable," the commission said in a statement.

The two monks are suspected of having abused their political influence to obtain for the monastery valuable land and public buildings and then sell them to private buyers, which amounted to the state losing millions of euros.

The affair, revealed by the press, is seen as the most serious crisis to have hit the conservative government of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis since it came to power last year.

Theodoros Roussopoulos, 45, the premier's closest adviser, was forced to resign over the affair in October. Prior Ephraim is also widely held to be his spiritual mentor.

His departure followed that of merchant shipping minister Georgios Voulgarakis, who quit on September 12 after it was disclosed his wife had acted as notary in the transaction.

Meanwhile, the monastery has filed an appeal with Greece's highest administrative court against the government's decision to freeze the major suspect transactions, a judicial source said.