Shocking video of monk beating woman (videos)

Scandal continued to rock the church on Thursday, with a new video surfacing of a woman being beaten with a belt by a monk at the now notorious Osiou Avakoum monastery.

Following the video that surfaced across Cypriot media of the woman being shouted at to leave the monastery on August 1 according to the footage, police said they would be investigating the incident.

In the video the woman, who is said to be a volunteer cleaner at the monastery, is seen attempting to give an item to one of the monks, while another monk berates her then pushes her to the ground and hits her.

At some point in the images that ensue he grabs his belt as the woman is leaving and whips her so hard that according to reports the buckle flew off.

Speaking about the shocking scenes, police spokesman Christos Andreou said that the police will begin investigating the incident.

According to what was confirmed by police, police are still trying to find the woman being hit in the video.

On Thursday, the video was aired on Sigma TV in the morning.

Police are also conducting two other investigations into the Osiou Avakoum monastery, one for alleged financial crimes going on at the monastery, and the other regarding alleged kidnapping and mistreatment of monks embroiled in the scandal by the Bishop of Tamasos Isaias.

Speaking about the video later in the day, theologian Ioannis Antoniades said: “This video can only cause sadness.”

He told Alpha TV that these scenes fill people with sadness and anger.

“This behaviour cannot remain unpunished and cannot be covered up,” he said.

Antoniades added that this scandal is unprecedented for the church of Cyprus.

Also commenting on the video, theologian Theodoros Kyriacou threw blame on the fact the whole scandal had grown due to the Holy Synod’s delay in making any decision and having the matter bounce back and forth from an ecclesiastical court to an investigative committee.

He said that it was a shame for the church and for the faithful to see these things.

Following the viewing of the video across all Cypriot channels, the alleged woman from the video spoke out on social media.

She apologised to the monks for the video surfacing and said that it was “doctored”.

The woman, Elena Rousou, said she had fought with the monk before and that the issue between them was resolved.

However, she did not deny being hit by the belt, saying that she “left with no injuries”.

It later emerged that the woman had given a statement to police against Tamasos Bishop Isaias, who had previously revealed the allegations against the monks.

The monks subsequently filed a complaint against Isaias, and according to Philenews, the woman gave a statement against Isaias as one of the supporters of the monks.

Later on, another video emerged this time on daily Politis, showing the monks of the monastery claiming to a group of visiting nuns a cross drenched in ‘holy myrrh’ was a miracle.

This cross had been the subject of another video, where the monks are shown to be pouring the ‘holy myrrh’ over the cross, to claim that the cross was producing it by itself.

The video with the nuns shows the nuns believing in the fraudulent miracle, and the monk is overheard on the CCTV footage telling the nuns to keep mum about the ‘miracle’ of the myrrh, because he didn’t want people flocking to the monastery.

These miracles, as revealed in previous days by allegations from Tamasos Isaias to the holy synod, were being used to extort thousands of euros from visitors to the monastery.

The legal team of the monks has called the video with the myrrh fake, saying that it was doctored.

The lawyers, Adrianna Klaedes and Nikolaos Koulouris, have filed their own allegations to police, claiming the monks were kidnapped and forced to sign alleged confessions in front of Isaias admitting to crimes at the monastery and to the fact they had sex with each other.