TSN continues to fuel: Zagaitsy Monastery of UOC is a target

Believers fear that the TSN TV channel’s information attack on the Zagaitsy Monastery of the UOC, founded in 1626, can provoke a religious conflict in the village of Zagaitsy, Ternopil region. In this regard, they appealed to the editorial office of the Union of Orthodox Journalists (UOJ) with a request to cover the events taking place around the monastery.

TSN channel dedicated two stories to the “monastery of the Moscow Patriarchate” as the staff of this medium insistently call the Zagaitsy Monastery. In the first of them, broadcast on January 25, 2020, the brethren of the monastery were accused of the fact that their monastery allegedly "illegally cut for itself more than a hectare of state land". Hieromonk Ambrose (Sadovyi), the dean of the monastery, told the UOJ correspondent about the true state of things.

“In 2015, deputies of the village council voted in favor of transferring land to the monastery for use. A criminal case was opened against the deputies. But the case was soon closed for the lack of evidence,” he said.

The monastery’s secretary, Hierodeacon Bassian (Trokhanovsky), who also spoke with the UOJ correspondent, added that the monastery is currently under state ownership. The brotherhood of the monastery uses the buildings in accordance with the lease agreement, which was concluded in 2012, and makes no attempts to privatize it.

In the second story released on February 4, 2020, TSN journalists went even further and accused the monastery of concealing “suspicious personalities” whom the locals allegedly were afraid of. It is noteworthy that on camera, local residents directly deny the presence of strangers in the monastery complex.

The presence of "suspicious persons" was also denied on the website of the National Police of Ukraine in the Ternopil region.

“The information sounded on one of the central television channels was not confirmed. In the story, reporters stated that suspicious outsiders who carry weapons <...> were in the Zagaytsy Monastery. Police officers did not find unauthorized persons and weapons,” reports the police website.

The dean of the monastery emphasized that the monastery does not accept workers with a questionable character, and the new vicar of the monastery, Archimandrite German (Velkov), strictly maintains the order on the territory of the complex.

The TSN plot also sounded an old story with weapons that are supposedly stored in a monastery. In fact, this is a hunting rifle officially registered back in 2006. It belonged to the abbot Philadelph (Sobchuk), who lived outside the monastery, about which he himself told the UOJ correspondent.

“I am a hunter and have a registered gun. I registered it a long time ago, back in 2006. My whole family are hunters: the father, brothers, all. All guns are registered, everything is legal,” he stressed.

In connection with the information attack on the monastery, the dean of the monastery called on all concerned to pray for the brethren and for the correction of the slanderers.

Earlier, TSN has defamed the priest of the UOC from Morozovka.