Athos monks on the Athos Chronograph portal published answers to the most common questions in connection with the position of the Holy Mountain regarding the OCU.

Answer to the question “It is known that in 2019 Athos was visited by the“ bishop ”of the OCU Pavel Yuristy and the“ metropolitan” of the OCU Mikhail Zinkevich. Is it true that they were accepted by the Kinot of the Holy Mountain as legitimate bishops? ” sounds like this:

“No that’s not true! In February 2019, “Bishop” Pavel Yuristy tried to get a meeting with representatives of the sacred Epistasia (the executive body of Kinot’s decisions) and take a photo with them, but he was denied this. A little later, “Metropolitan” Mikhail Zinkevich was received in Kinot, however, the reception for him was not cordial. The representative of the monastery of St. Paul severely reprimanded him, and other representatives of the monasteries tried to get from him a clear answer to the question of what they (the schismatics) need on Athos, why they are embarrassing with their arrival, what are their goals. But the most important thing is that neither one nor the other was given a document by Epistasia allowing them, as bishops, to visit the monasteries of Athos and serve in them.

That is, having refused to provide them with this document, neither Kinot nor Epistasia recognized any of them as legitimate bishops with full powers. However, the edition of Rompheus published material, which indicated that such a document was provided to “Bishop” Paul, which in fact did not correspond to reality. To prove this, at least the fact that representatives of the four monasteries of V. Lavra, Kutlumush, N. Esfigmen and Iviron expressed publicly the opinion that the document giving the right to the bishop to visit and serve in the monastery should be provided by Episia automatically on the basis of a letter from Constantinople patriarchy. Otherwise, the refusal to provide such a document inflicts an insult on the Ecumenical Patriarch, etc. To all this, we can add that Epistasia turned to the Greek Foreign Ministry with a complaint about the actions of “Metropolitan” Mikhail Zinkevich, who, with his companions, unfurled the flag of Ukraine and demonstratively took pictures with him , which is prohibited by the charter of the Holy Mountain, as a manifestation of nationalism. All these actions of Kinot and Epistasia perfectly illustrate the attitude towards the schismatics and speak of the quite definite position of Athos. As for individual monasteries, this reflects their private position and is entirely on their conscience.”