The Church of Cyprus is attempting to settle “intra-family” one of the biggest scandals involving it and related to the activity of monks at the Monastery of Saint Avvakum in the village of Fterikoudi.

The Metropolitan of Tamassos and Oreni, Isaias, in whose jurisdiction the monastery belongs, has decided to put a padlock on it and refer the matter to the Holy Synod which meets tomorrow and, barring the unlikely event, will “shave” two monks.

It should be noted that the two monks, when their activities were revealed, asked themselves to be excommunicated in order to avoid a scandal that would expose them.

The evidence that burned them is the sexual encounters in the monastery’s premises, which were even recorded on video by cameras that they had installed themselves for security reasons.

They felt they had complete control over the environment and did not turn off the cameras, which recorded everything.

When the rumours about what was going on behind closed doors started to turn into gossip, a surprise investigation was made by the Metropolitan concerned and the videos were received.

When the monks realized that they could not refute what had been recorded they asked to be deposed.

However, the scandal was not only about the sexual encounters but the whole operation of the monastery.

Often “miracles” occurred with images of tears and dripping myrrh… leading thousands of gullible people to the monastery to worship and to support it financially, leaving vows worth thousands of euros.

The myrrh that dripped when the icons were “weeping” was real and the monks themselves had taken care of this by placing a mechanism that channeled myrrh into the icon from a container that was not visible.

The mechanism was discovered but no one wants to talk about the fraud so as not to scandalise the faithful.

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The “miracles” at the monastery were often shown by YouTube videos and the monks were very active on social media and also had a media presence.

The vows and collections on the bench from the thousands of people who visited the monastery are being sought as it was found that the two monks had kept large sums of cash estimated at €1 million in their cell, as well as jewellery and other valuables.

They were also found to have bank accounts with large deposits and had “invested” in the purchase of apartments in Piraeus and Cyprus. The apartments were used by the monks for their own use.

The case has not been reported to the police and the investigation is being conducted within the Church.