The 55-year-old Bishop of Zheleznogorsk and Lgovsky Benjamin of the Moscow Patriarchate passed away yesterday of Covid-19 in the Kursk hospital.
Bishop Benjamin was hospitalized for the last few days, and the day before yesterday he was admitted to the intensive care unit, but finally yesterday he died.
At the same time, the deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Synodal Department for External Church Relations, Father Nikolay Balashov, announced in a post on his personal Facebook account the day before yesterday that both he and his wife were tested positive on coronavirus.
The Moscow Patriarchate also announced that the Serafimo-Diveevsky Monastery has been quarantined since April 25, as there were confirmed cases of coronavirus among the monks, who have been isolated at the monastery’s medical center.
It is reminded that at least four monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), which have become contagion hotspots for they ignored measures to combat the disease, have been quarantined.
In recent weeks, the same measure had been applied to three other monasteries, two of which are located in the capital. Among them, the famous Kyiv Pechersk Lavra or “Monastery of the Caves”, which is located in the heart of the capital and where more than 140 cases have been recorded (i.e. a number almost equal to half of its monks), three of whom were fatal.
Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is under the Patriarchate of Moscow has largely ignored government measures to combat the pandemic. Moreover, it was the only, out of the three Ukrainian doctrines, which did not ask its faithful to stay at home during the Easter celebrations, last Sunday.
In violation of the government’s restrictive measures, several dozens of worshipers gathered to attend the celebrations in the Holy Dormition Pochayiv Lavra and more than 300 people gathered at the Sviatohirsk Lavra, the main monastery of the Orthodox Church in eastern Ukraine, according to media reports.
Some see behind this distrust of the Orthodox Church an attempt by Moscow to spread the pandemic in Ukraine, as the two countries have been in fierce competition for many years: “They are saboteurs,” a Ukrainian official told AFP, but did not want his identity to be published.
“We see a wave of propaganda against our doctrine,” Archbishop Clement Vecheria, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, told the same news agency.
