The abbot of the Abvakum monastery, Nektarios, refers to the soul-destroying situations they have been experiencing all this time after the outbreak of the Abvakum Monastery scandal in his first post on his social media account.
Such is his post:
My dears and dears
After some time, I am contacting you. My abstention for so long from communicating with you is due to one single fact. It is the first time, since my brothers and I consciously and out of love and faith in God chose the solitary life, that we live unprecedented but at the same time very difficult and soul-destroying situations for us. Situations that shook our souls, but never put our faith in God to the test.
As you all know, with your love and support and the blessing and support of our Despot, we built our Monastery, which became point of reference as a religious pilgrimage. We put our effort and soul into it.
But since March 5th of this year, both me and my brothers have been experiencing and we are experiencing terrible events:
a) We saw unexpectedly hooded to invade the monastery, insulting the sanctity of its space,
b) we saw to are illegally removed, not only the official books and documents of our Monastery but also our personal belongings and our private documents and to be illegally confiscated as well,
c) we saw our monastery to is locked and yes deserts, while such action by a bishop is forbidden by the holy rules,
d) we were forced with unbearable pressure and inhumane treatment to confession of deeds, which we never did,
e) we were illegally evicted from our monastery, being forced to violate our sacred obligation of renunciation as monks within our holy monastery.
And finally, we saw that we are accused of deeds, which the mind of man cannot conceive. And from monks who do work, having the love of the world and the esteem of our Despot we have turned into people who deceive the faithful, who steal from the Church, who sexually harass their fellow human beings etc. And all this from one day to the next.
The most important thing, however, is that all the "evidence", on which the foundation of the unjust accusations against me and the brothers of our Monastery is attempted to be based, are illegal and resulted from unlawful recording of private life and private conversations of all of us, without us knowing it.
Nevertheless, and not ignoring the fact that you have actually seen snapshots of our lifestyle and heard our private conversations, although we emphasize that recording them and their publication was made illegal, we owe you – for what you have generally seen and heard about us – an explanation from the heart.
We owe it to you, for the love and support you have offered us so far:
a) the money you gave us from your heart and many of you from your backlog, we managed them only for the benefit of our monastery, which is also your monastery. They were not an opportunity or an occasion for personal enrichment. And we have never refused any control, especially from our Despot. Every inspection was welcome, because as our people say "clear sky, lightning is not afraid".
b) we never entered into acts of sexual intercourse with each other or sought to enter into other persons or believers. But for phrases of everyday life, which are heard in published snapshots and which we repeat, that were illegally recorded, we apologize and ask for your forgiveness, to the extent that you judge, that these should not have been heard from the lips of monks. But we are human beings, carrying a heavy burden that we struggle with every day. Their human frailties, which sometimes we defeat and sometimes they defeat us. And it is, we repeat, human, that our daily coexistence creates intimacy, trust and closeness between us, which is sometimes externalized in and by – in small measure for many – "bold" jokes, but without any further consequence or implied consequence.
c) some of us we do have bank accounts and real estate. This is due to the fact that at the same time we are also clergy, and as clergy we are required to have a bank account for the payment of our salary, we are also entitled to have any immovable property. We repeat, as clergy.
This, however, it does not make us thieves of the money, which you donated to us for our monastery, which is also your monastery.
d) the Holy Cross of Agios Porphyrios, apart from being a sacred relic, is for me personally an inheritance from blessed Athena Sideris, spiritual child of Agios Porphyrios. You understand, then, my respect for this sacred relic. It is therefore self-evident that neither was, nor is, nor will it ever be an object for us to exploit. Nor will we tell you that he does or does not perform miracles, because everyone experiences the miracle personally. And the fact of his smell, as it was illegally recorded and made public but it was misinterpreted it was only aimed at the aesthetic character of the fragrance of the cross and in no way to prove or strengthen its miraculous character. Far be it from us such or similar thought or intention. Just like the occasional smearing of it with alcohol, an action that was not intended for anything other than the antisepsis of the heirloom and that alone. Anything else is beyond reality.
e) desiring to help our Despot, His Beatitude and the other High Priests from our side, we submitted a Memorandum. In this Memorandum, we pointed out the eleven (11) mistakes that have been made in the investigation process to date, beginning with the actions of our Despot. And while these mistakes lead to the cancellation of the whole process, unfortunately we did not get any response. And neither have we ever been summoned, to explain, nor do we know, what the summoned witnesses testify. What we do know is that our presumption of innocence has been violated and we are already considered guilty. The worst, however, is that every day we are condemned without reason in the conscience of the world, that is, in your own consciousness. And that's unfair.
We owe you all these heartfelt words. For your love and support. And we for our part, all brothers united and of one mind, assure you that we will endure this test, drawing strength from you. And with whatever strength God gives us, we will continue, asking to be checked and judged fairly, hoping for the restoration of our honor as monks and our dignity as people.
Famagusta.News