On one of the Ternopil public pages on Facebook, false information was spread that allegedly the Metropolitan of Pochaev Vladimir had secretly escaped from Ukraine.

It is noted that the abbot of the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra, Metropolitan Vladimir allegedly left the monastery in November last year and secretly left for Greece, accompanied by two unknown persons.

“From our own sources, we learned that the Metropolitan fled Ukraine because of the threat of arrest on charges of misappropriation and sale of ancient icons of the monastery. Currently, St. Vladimir is incognito in the Russian Monastery of St. Panteleimon,” writes Bigus Ternopilsky.

In addition, the note states that allegedly, in order to “hide his absence, Metropolitan Vladimir left a double in Pochaev instead of himself, who lives in his cell and from time to time conducts divine services. The monks try to limit the communication of strangers with the double as much as possible in order to reduce the risk of exposing the substitution. And when the participation of the metropolitan in the liturgies is mandatory, makeup specialists are invited to the Lavra, who diligently make up the double.

Bigus also reports that, according to some monks, “the double was made up several times by the well-known Ternopil makeup artist Victoria Gurskaya, who was secretly brought to the Lavra the night before divine services and official receptions. After her work, only the monks closest to the metropolitan could notice the small features that distinguished the “copy” from the real rector.”