Seven monks leave Vatopedi after the visit of OCU delegation

Vatopedi Monastery of Athos

Thus, seven monks of Vatopedi protested against contacts with the new church structure, Interfax reports.

According to the source in the Moscow Patriarchate, this is about monastics from Ukraine, Russia and Moldova. According to journalists, among the ethnic Greeks inhabiting Vatopedi, there are quite a lot of those who frown at the position of the leadership of the monastery and consider the OCU representatives as schismatics.

“In total, today four Athos monasteries — Xenophontos, Pantokrator, New Esphigmenou and Vatopedi — have entered into communion with Ukrainian pseudo-church,” the source concluded.

In turn, the rector of the Moscow Theological Academy, Archbishop Ambrosy (Yermakov) of Verey, said: according to his information, the Patriarch of Constantinople ordered the delegation of the OCU to visit all the monasteries of the Holy Mount.

“In our eyes, one by one, the Athos monasteries get into communion with dissenters and commit the unthinkable betrayal of Orthodox people in Ukraine who are being persecuted, blackmailed, beaten, driven out of their own temples <...> How sophisticated the enemy of the human race is mocking people!”

As reported by the UOJ, the OCU delegation was not allowed to the Holy Panteleimon Monastety on Athos. The abbot of the monastery, Archimandrite Eulogy, did not let the representatives of the new Ukrainian Church into the monastery, turned them straight from the monastery gates with the words that they are not recognized there.

Earlier 5 out of 20 monasteries backed the initiative of Constaninople Patriarch Bartholomew to send a delegation to the enthronement of OCU head Epiphany Dumenko. Representatives of the majority of Athos monasteries (15) spoke out against it. Many Athonite hermits claim to stop the commemoration of Patriarch Bartholomew. Other monasteries, including Philotheou and Karakallou, have said they would close their gates if Epiphany Dumenko, the head of the OCU, came the Holy Mount.

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