The representatives of the monastery claimed that the authorities and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine were allegedly preparing its "capture".
Religious columnist Lana Samokhvalova wrote about this in her blog on Ukrinform, citing her own sources, reports Religiyna Pravda.
In the material, the author debunks the fake spread by the archimandrite of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Ukraine: it seems that the authorities and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine are preparing the "capture" of the Okhtyrka monastery (Sumy region) and want to toss him and the old nuns out. In fact, it was a men's monastery, and the nuns did not appear there by chance.
"I will share the rumours with you. According to some sources, the 93rd brigade found weapons there (there are large caves under the monastery) and handed them and the monks over to special authorities. After "fruitful negotiations" with the latter, the monks allegedly decided to leave their hiding places.
According to other sources, there were no weapons, and they left because they simply want to wait out the hard times in western Ukraine," the author notes.
According to her, the monastery was empty during March, and they even offered the OCU to use its premises.
"And then (this is my own hypothesis), in order to preserve the great monastery of the 17th century, the Kyiv office of the Moscow Patriarchate relocates two nuns (according to some data, four) and Archimandrite Seraphim Pankratov, who until recently wished to be "with the OCU, but formally remain in the MP". And as soon as the community expresses dissatisfaction, Father Seraphim sadly announces that they are being tossed out. Let's be honest, they were not tossed out on the street, for we talk about well-equipped premises a few kilometers from Okhtyrka. It was (knowingly or not) a brilliant operation called to preserve the premises of a 17th-century monastery for a specific denomination. The whereabouts of the fugitive monks remain unknown," writes Lana Samokhvalova.