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Speaker 1: When we talked to Marietta Fernandez, one of the parents

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Speaker 1: from Holy Cross, she told us a story about Sister

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Speaker 1: Michelle Lewis that in all our years digging into the school,

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Speaker 1: we'd never heard before. Just before joining the monastery and

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Speaker 1: deciding to live the rest of her life as a nun,

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Speaker 1: Sister Michelle told Marietta that she took a trip home

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Speaker 1: to Ohio where she grew up. She packed up all

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Speaker 1: of her belongings that she had. She had a truck,

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Speaker 1: She put them in her truck. She drove to her

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Speaker 1: family's home. She dropped everything off on that drive. Sister

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Speaker 1: Michelle was letting go of her past life, getting rid

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Speaker 1: of what she owned, moving on from her job as

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Speaker 1: an accountant, and putting her divorce an abusive marriage in

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Speaker 1: the past. But she was giving up more than those

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Speaker 1: parts of her identity. Because I knew that she liked rock,

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Speaker 1: and I knew that she liked heavy metal and stuff

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Speaker 1: like that. I had this whole imagination of Sister Michelle

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Speaker 1: driving down the road by herself with all of her belongings,

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Speaker 1: you know, listening to Stairway to Heaven Metallica and the

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Speaker 1: Doors or everything, and saying this is the last time,

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Speaker 1: I'm ever gonna do this, because my life is going

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Speaker 1: to change. She released any energy that was in any

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Speaker 1: way negative in her life, and she knew that she

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Speaker 1: had to do that if she was going to be

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Speaker 1: a monastic, you give everything up, you really don't bring

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Speaker 1: anything with you. She was joyful to do that. She

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Speaker 1: was joyful because she was releasing that from her life.

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Speaker 1: She was starting over. Hearing the story about sister Michelle,

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Speaker 1: now it got us thinking about father Went and Father Damien.

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Speaker 1: We've spent so much time talking to the police and

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Speaker 1: lawyers and Mike over the years that we've always seen

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Speaker 1: the priests from that perspective as manipulative, power hungry frauds

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Speaker 1: who may be sexually abused one of the boys who

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Speaker 1: they promised a better life. But over the years, we

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Speaker 1: can't say that we haven't had our doubts about that

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Speaker 1: story as well. There was never any solid, corroborating evidence

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Speaker 1: that the abuse happened. If Mike was capable of doing

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Speaker 1: something as terrible as stabbing someone more than ninety times,

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Speaker 1: maybe he's also capable of lying about the abuse. And

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Speaker 1: if that's the case, who's to say that the priests

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Speaker 1: weren't doing the same as Sister Michelle. When they moved

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Speaker 1: to North Carolina, maybe they weren't running away, but giving

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Speaker 1: up what they had, the school, the monastery, their community

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Speaker 1: and starting over again. And when the Orthodox Church in

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Speaker 1: America also started looking into them, maybe they realized that

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Speaker 1: they didn't go far enough. They needed to give up

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Speaker 1: more and begin again, this time in Ukraine. But their

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Speaker 1: long silence in the decades since the murder has left

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Speaker 1: us feeling like we'll never truly know how to feel

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Speaker 1: about all of this. When we started the project, we

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Speaker 1: knew that in order for this story to feel fair,

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Speaker 1: we'd have to at least try to talk to Father

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Speaker 1: Went and Father Damien to share their side of the story.

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Speaker 1: But twenty years ago they didn't even answer questions while

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Speaker 1: under subpoena in front of a judge, And on top

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Speaker 1: of that, we had no idea where to even find them.

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Speaker 1: I'm Paula Barrows and I'm Melanie Bartley and this is

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Speaker 1: sacred scandal. Okay. So when we returned to this project

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Speaker 1: last year, here's what we knew about the group from

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Speaker 1: Holy Cross from what we could put together based on

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Speaker 1: what's publicly visible on social media like Facebook and LinkedIn

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Speaker 1: Father's Went and Damien Petro and Vasile all appeared to

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Speaker 1: be in Ukraine since about two thousand eleven, and it

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Speaker 1: looks like they've invested heavily in building some sort of

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Speaker 1: hospital or clinic called Protection Medical Center. It's an us Garad,

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Speaker 1: the biggest city in trans Carpathia, and it looks like

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Speaker 1: it opened around two thousand thirteen. We learned that the

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Speaker 1: clinic is like a mini hospital. It had a staff

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Speaker 1: of doctors, nurses and technicians. They did basic general medicine

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Speaker 1: type stuff, but also had expensive modern equipment to do

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Speaker 1: m R s, CT scans, X rays and minor surgery.

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Speaker 1: The website for the hospital where we got most of

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Speaker 1: this information, listed Father's Went and Damien Petro and Vasile

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Speaker 1: all as directors as recently as last year, but strangely

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Speaker 1: that site became disconnected over the summer and we couldn't

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Speaker 1: find any news as to why. Also, it looked like

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Speaker 1: they were starting to build a new monastery about eight

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Speaker 1: years ago from Facebook photos. It was shaping up to

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Speaker 1: be a small version of the gold onion domed Orthodox

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Speaker 1: churches you see across Eastern Europe, but we had no

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Speaker 1: idea where it was in Ukraine, and after two thousand

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Speaker 1: and fourteen there are no more public photos of Father

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Speaker 1: went or Damien. Up until then, they look almost exactly

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Speaker 1: as they did at Holy Cross forever in their long

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Speaker 1: black robes. But Petro, the monk who was once assistant,

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Speaker 1: had more recent photos. In older pictures he dressed in

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Speaker 1: monk's robes, but now he was almost always in regular clothes,

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Speaker 1: and as you click through its photos you see less

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Speaker 1: of the other monastics and more of someone else, a woman,

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Speaker 1: and they look close like a girlfriend or maybe even

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Speaker 1: a wife. We wondered if he left the group. It

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Speaker 1: was also unclear whether or not they still used the

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Speaker 1: monastery in North Carolina, which they still own. The property

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Speaker 1: was put up for sale around two thousand and sixteen,

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Speaker 1: but it never sold and they took it off the

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Speaker 1: market two years later. We tried reaching out to all

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Speaker 1: of them through social media because we had so many questions,

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Speaker 1: but never got any response. So last year, when we

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Speaker 1: talked to the former monastic candidate, Elia Hertztock, who lives

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Speaker 1: in Ukraine, we decided to see if he knew anything.

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Speaker 1: Elia told us that one of the monks, usp Lamback,

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Speaker 1: who is also another one of his cousins left the

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Speaker 1: group and they returned to Ukraine. He got married and

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Speaker 1: started a family. But Eliah heard that Joseph left in

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Speaker 1: part because of the medical center, because I know that

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Speaker 1: Joseph's brother we were working together, and he told me

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Speaker 1: that he visited the center before Joseph was there, before

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Speaker 1: he left, so he didn't like the way it was here,

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Speaker 1: that they had to work all the times, all the days,

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Speaker 1: and even if it was holidays, so Sundays, but usually

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Speaker 1: in our religion, if it's a big holiday or Sunday,

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Speaker 1: you don't do any physical work. And then they were working,

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Speaker 1: and he was asking his brother Joseph, why you're working,

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Speaker 1: and they said, because father went blessed our work. We

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Speaker 1: can do any time, anything and any day like that.

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Speaker 1: And then they were only two of them, was still

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Speaker 1: and Joseph and then just left. Eliot told us that

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Speaker 1: his other cousin, Vasile, was no longer working at the

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Speaker 1: medical center, but his path out of the clinic was different.

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Speaker 1: He's staying over there in the USA, and Vasil now

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Speaker 1: he is making a grill which chicken meat grilling somebody

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Speaker 1: chef in some shopping center where it's in the place

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Speaker 1: that they moved from Miami. I don't really remember, so

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Speaker 1: to your knowledge of a seal in the US, he's

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Speaker 1: not in Ukraine. I was speaking with his brother maybe

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Speaker 1: two days before, and he was asking me what do

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Speaker 1: you think I can do to bring was still back?

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Speaker 1: So he's not affiliated with Went or Damian anymore. I

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Speaker 1: believe they are. But father went and petrol what I

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Speaker 1: heard from what's ill brother there and he was by himself,

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Speaker 1: And believe is he still a monk? He's still a monk,

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Speaker 1: but he cooks chickens. Based on what we thought we knew,

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Speaker 1: we were obviously surprised to hear that any of the

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Speaker 1: former Holy Cross monks were living in North Carolina, but

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Speaker 1: we were even more stunned to find out that Bastille,

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Speaker 1: a monk whose job it was to serve the monastery,

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Speaker 1: was maybe working as a cook. It felt a little unbelievable,

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Speaker 1: to be honest, and we were hoping that knowing where

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Speaker 1: the seal was might help us get in touch with

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Speaker 1: the priests too. We tried calling the Weaverville Monastery, but

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Speaker 1: the numbers listed no longer belonged to it, and he

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Speaker 1: didn't reply to our messages online, so we sent a

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Speaker 1: local producer, Greta Webber, to see if she could confirm

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Speaker 1: if a seal was really alone in North Carolina. So

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Speaker 1: I'm now driving up the hill towards the monastery. It's

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Speaker 1: a gravel roads, pretty steep hill. Greta said that whatever

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Speaker 1: security cameras and electric fence that the O c A

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Speaker 1: Visitors saw when they first came to the monastery was

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Speaker 1: long gone by now, and that the whole setup felt

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Speaker 1: pretty simple. The monastery is really just like kind of

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Speaker 1: shipping container um looking very basic ah building. She also

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Speaker 1: noticed that the monastery's name changed yet again, says Holy

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Speaker 1: Transfiguration the word travel. But no monks were there. All

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Speaker 1: the blinds are closed in the monastery. Yeah, it looks

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Speaker 1: like no one's really been there for a while. Greta

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Speaker 1: was able to meet some neighbors from the houses around

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Speaker 1: the monastery. They were willing to talk to her bit

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Speaker 1: after she told him what she was doing, but they

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Speaker 1: didn't want to be recorded for the podcast. Greta said

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Speaker 1: none of them seemed to know much about the monks,

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Speaker 1: even though some of them were neighbors for years, but

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Speaker 1: they did say at least one person was living there

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Speaker 1: at the moment a monk they knew as Seraphim, who

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Speaker 1: we knew as Va Sial, and they told Greta that

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Speaker 1: he did have a job. He worked in a shopping center,

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Speaker 1: and so I kind of put it together that it

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Speaker 1: was Facile that worked, and so I just started calling

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Speaker 1: and literally just asking like, is Vasile working today? Eventually

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Speaker 1: I got to the I think it was the Delhi

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Speaker 1: Department and I asked, you know, it's Facile working today

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Speaker 1: and the guy was like who, And I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you know, he's Ukrainian and he was like, oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: Va Sial like, let me get him, and then I

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Speaker 1: was like, oh shoot, oh shoot. So I just hung up,

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Speaker 1: And was our mistake. We didn't really prepare Greta for

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Speaker 1: what the state of Asil if she found him. I

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Speaker 1: guess we figured we'd take it from there, would go

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Speaker 1: ourselves and try to talk to him. But by the

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Speaker 1: time she did confirm that Vasile was living in North Carolina,

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Speaker 1: Melanie and I had other plans. We figured out where

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Speaker 1: Father went and Father Damien's new monastery was, and booked

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Speaker 1: our flights to Ukraine. That's coming up after the break.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Sacred Scandal I'm Paula Barrows and I

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Speaker 1: Melanie Bartley. When Ilia confirmed that most of the Holy

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Speaker 1: Cross group was still in Transcarpathia, we knew we had

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Speaker 1: to go find them. I know it sounds crazy, but

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Speaker 1: it's crazy for Melanie and me too. We never thought

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Speaker 1: we'd go this far. What started as visits to Mike

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Speaker 1: and Prison, an hour or so north of Miami was

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Speaker 1: now a search for a monastery in a remote corner

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Speaker 1: of eastern Europe. We figured it's a small part of

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Speaker 1: the world. If we ask around, someone has to know

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Speaker 1: where to find the tall American priest. This was an

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Speaker 1: early December, just as the political tension between Russia and

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Speaker 1: Ukraine started to begin. Everyone in our family was worried

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Speaker 1: about us, telling us not to go. Are you sure

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Speaker 1: you want to go now? But by then we'd already

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Speaker 1: bought our tickets. So we flew from Miami to Istanbul

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Speaker 1: to Liviv, a city in western Ukraine, and that's the landing.

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Speaker 1: We got a landing ladies and gentlemen, which just a

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Speaker 1: lot of guys m and then we did a long

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Speaker 1: four and a half hour drive from one side of

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Speaker 1: the Carpathian Mountains to another. Here you go stir until

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Speaker 1: we got to us Garad, the city where the Holy

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Speaker 1: Cross Monks opened their medical center. I'm in. Before we

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Speaker 1: started looking for fathers, Went and Damien, though there was

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Speaker 1: another pair we needed to talk to first, Mike's parents,

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Speaker 1: Maria and Yuri co Fell. They still live a lot

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Speaker 1: like they did while Mike was growing up. Uri retired

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Speaker 1: from the railroad, but in their sixties they still work

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Speaker 1: in the fields with tools straight from the eighteen hundreds.

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Speaker 1: A few years ago, Mike wrote Apollo on Me, worried

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Speaker 1: because he hadn't gotten an email from his parents for

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Speaker 1: a long time. Aside from us, they're really the only

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Speaker 1: other people he hears from regularly. We got in touch

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Speaker 1: with the ko Fells, and it turned out that Florida's

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Speaker 1: prison email service was now blocked in Ukraine, so we

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Speaker 1: helped his parents get into a VPN so they could

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Speaker 1: get around their restrictions. Since then, we've kept in touch

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Speaker 1: with them too. We don't share a common language, but

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Speaker 1: we email and use Google Translate. We wanted to meet

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Speaker 1: them at their home and Sivkovina Bistra, the village where

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Speaker 1: Mike grew up, but they didn't want us to visit

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Speaker 1: and draw the same attention that the lawyers, private investigators

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Speaker 1: and other reporters brought two decades ago. So their local

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Speaker 1: priest drove them almost two hours from the village to

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Speaker 1: our hotel in Usgarad, and we spoke with them through

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Speaker 1: a translator, Julia Terasuk, who amazingly kept up with our

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Speaker 1: conversation for hours. Mel and I met the Coo Fells

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Speaker 1: for the first time in person a few hours after

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Speaker 1: we arrived in the city. We were honestly a little

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Speaker 1: worried about how this meaning would go at first, and

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Speaker 1: how they would feel about finally meeting us in person,

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Speaker 1: But when we saw them waiting outside our hotel, the

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Speaker 1: four of us recognized each other right away. They were

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Speaker 1: so friendly, bubbly and really excited to see us. We

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Speaker 1: all hugged and went inside to start the interview. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: my Rideo, she's Marie and she lives in Vista and

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Speaker 1: she loves him loyal life, and she's waiting for him

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Speaker 1: to welcome soon. And you, yeah, you MICHAELA. And he's

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Speaker 1: his father and he's waiting for him to meet us.

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Speaker 1: Though it was exciting to meet them after all these years,

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Speaker 1: we knew this would be different than our casual emails. Today,

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Speaker 1: Mel and I would have to bring up some more

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Speaker 1: difficult stuff with them, things we weren't sure they'd be

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Speaker 1: comfortable talking about, and after our emotional greeting, these questions

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Speaker 1: would be hard for us to ask. Mikailo has told

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Speaker 1: us that you, I guess you you had a drinking

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Speaker 1: problem when he was growing up, and he's very happy

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Speaker 1: that you're recovered down, but can you tell us a

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Speaker 1: little bit about that phase of your life you He

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Speaker 1: seemed a bit embarrassed that we brought up this time

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Speaker 1: in his life. He brushed it off and said it's

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Speaker 1: just something that people did in those days. But it

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Speaker 1: was his drinking that led to Mike's allegations of sex

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Speaker 1: abuse against him. But since those allegations, Mike's relationship with

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Speaker 1: his dad has meanted and he's actually retracted those initial

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Speaker 1: accusations against Uri. He said that he was too drunk

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Speaker 1: to realize he was touching Mike and not his mother

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Speaker 1: in their shared bed. Let's go back to these guys.

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Speaker 1: How did they present the opportunity to you? What was

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Speaker 1: the package? They said? Went initially told him that the

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Speaker 1: plan was to build a monastery and a hospital in Ukraine.

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Speaker 1: Mike would study for three years in the US, then

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Speaker 1: come back as a monk and a doctor and work

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Speaker 1: in the hospital. He couldn't say no to such a thing,

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Speaker 1: and they were they be meeting him here, maybe not

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Speaker 1: in his village, but they would flip close. We asked

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Speaker 1: the k Fels if they saw any signs that Mike

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Speaker 1: was struggling at Holy Cross. They mentioned a few things

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Speaker 1: that stood out to them, mostly that he seemed sad

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Speaker 1: or different when he came home. He would also flinch

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Speaker 1: and jerk back when they tried to hug him, and

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Speaker 1: that time when he came home with father Damien and

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Speaker 1: the adoption was brought up, they felt as if the

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Speaker 1: priest didn't want Mike to be alone with his own parents.

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Speaker 1: Mm hmm. So in he was coming everywhere, all around,

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Speaker 1: always with Damien, and the mother was asking what did

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Speaker 1: they love you so much there? Or like why would

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Speaker 1: they want to adopt you? In Mike's letters, the co

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Speaker 1: Fell said their son told them that he was fine,

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Speaker 1: but that Mike did hint at something he maybe didn't

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Speaker 1: want to share. Vin would be telling him to the

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Speaker 1: mother's day, are watching some weird movies in the evening,

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Speaker 1: He wouldn't confess what kind of movies because he felt ashamed,

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Speaker 1: but he would just say they watched weird movies, such

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Speaker 1: movies that I am closing my eyes when I watched.

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Speaker 1: Only now does she assume those movies were pornography. The

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Speaker 1: ko Fells first heard about the murder through Pedro's uncle,

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Speaker 1: who helped run the candidate's house in Ukraine. He called

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Speaker 1: to let them know what happened and to tell them

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Speaker 1: that their son confessed and wasn't prison And that's really

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Speaker 1: surprised Paula on me, we'd always just assume that father

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Speaker 1: went through father Damien were there. Wants to give them

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Speaker 1: this news, even with a translator. When they got the news, though,

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Speaker 1: Maria and Yuri were shocked and didn't know what to do.

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Speaker 1: In talking to them, it feels like they're still stuck

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Speaker 1: in that moment, lost and powerless. Um, how has this experienced,

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Speaker 1: This whole thing changed the two of you role. Our translator,

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Speaker 1: Julia choked up and started crying as the co Fells answered.

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Speaker 1: Through tears, she told us that they both talked about

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Speaker 1: depression and that Ury said he just has to keep

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Speaker 1: living but has no real happiness anymore. Yuri also said

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Speaker 1: he has health issues and his only hope is that

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Speaker 1: he lives just a few more years to see Mike

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Speaker 1: get out of prison now. Julia wasn't the only one

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Speaker 1: in the room with eyes filled with tears. The co

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Speaker 1: Fels told us that over the last two decades they

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Speaker 1: already cried everything out, but Maria said that maybe talking

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Speaker 1: about it now could lighten their hearts. We were all

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Speaker 1: so curious about whether Father Went or Father Damien reached

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Speaker 1: out to them at any point after Mike was arrested

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Speaker 1: to give them any more details on their son's case,

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Speaker 1: or maybe just to see how they were doing. Didn't

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Speaker 1: um Father Gregory call you at all? To what they

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Speaker 1: told us that they never once heard from any of

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Speaker 1: the priests or the monks in the last twenty years.

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Speaker 1: And this too really struck us. I mean, the co

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Speaker 1: Fells trusted them as priests and knew them both and

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Speaker 1: Father Damien slept in their house and try to adopt

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Speaker 1: their son. It always felt like the least they could

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Speaker 1: do was reach out, but that never happened. We are surprised.

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Speaker 1: We are surprised, and Maria and Nudi also were surprised

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Speaker 1: to learn from us that the group were now living

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Speaker 1: in Transcarpathia, something we figured they already knew finding out

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Speaker 1: that fathers Went and Damien were living so close, it's

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Speaker 1: still never called or visited. Clearly up the Kofels were

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Speaker 1: still emotional all these years later. They clearly felt wronged

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Speaker 1: by the priests. Maria wondered how they could all go

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Speaker 1: through this terrible experience together but get nothing but silence.

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Speaker 1: They even went so far as to blame the murder

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Speaker 1: on the priests because they were in control at Holy Cross.

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Speaker 1: They also believe their son's allegations of sexual abuse against

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Speaker 1: father's Went and Damien, and Maria said it wasn't up

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Speaker 1: to her or her husband to judge the priests, but

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Speaker 1: to God. That night, the k Fels changed her mind

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Speaker 1: about us coming to their home now. They insisted that

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Speaker 1: we stopped by if we had time during our trip.

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Speaker 1: Then we hugged again, we cried some more, and they

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Speaker 1: drove back up the mountain to Vergovina Bistra. We wanted

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Speaker 1: to know why no one from Holy Cross had ever

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Speaker 1: reached out to them, so the next morning we'd start

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Speaker 1: poking around Transcarpathia trying to answer that question. That's coming

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Speaker 1: up after a break. Welcome back to Sacred Scandal. Uskarad

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Speaker 1: is not a big city. There's not much more than

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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand people, and it's kind of small footprint

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Speaker 1: on the map. Its sprawl is confined by mountains on

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Speaker 1: one side and the border between Slovakia and Ukraine on another.

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Speaker 1: But on the eastern edge of town, about fifteen minutes

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Speaker 1: drive from the city center, the group from Holy Cross

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Speaker 1: built Protection Medical Center. It's a modern cottage looking clinic

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Speaker 1: that stood out from the worn industrial buildings with roll

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Speaker 1: up doors and iron gates that surrounded it. They didn't

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Speaker 1: know that there existed in a private hospital. I think

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Speaker 1: it's something quite unique for our town. Our translator, Yulia,

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Speaker 1: who's lived in Uskarat her whole life, told us she

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Speaker 1: never heard of the clinic and felt it was a

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Speaker 1: weird place to set one up. It's hidden off the

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Speaker 1: main road and not many buses, she said. I routed

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Speaker 1: out there. Not long before we left for Ukraine. We

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Speaker 1: found out that the website for Protection Medical Center was

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Speaker 1: down because now it had a different name. A new

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Speaker 1: pin appeared on its Google Maps location. It was called

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Speaker 1: Prevention Hospital. The new site showed it was part of

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Speaker 1: a chain of two or three other clinics of the

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Speaker 1: same name around us Gard. There was no mention of

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Speaker 1: the priests or monks anywhere on the site. We were

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Speaker 1: curious what happened and why it may be changed hands,

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Speaker 1: but we also wanted to see what they built. It

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Speaker 1: felt like Holy Cross Academy all over again. They create

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Speaker 1: some dream building, the name changes and then they disappear. Paula, Julia,

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Speaker 1: our producer Dennis and I drove out there one afternoon

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Speaker 1: just to see what they created. I mean, this is

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Speaker 1: very impressive. I'll be honest. It's a nice so strange

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Speaker 1: this building, it's really nice. It didn't look that nice.

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Speaker 1: She didn't look as in person. Is just like really impressive.

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Speaker 1: It's thing. It's really clean, it looks new. It kind

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Speaker 1: of looks like a like a like a ski lodge.

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Speaker 1: There are a lot of people here when you came out. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I was actually surprised that it was. We asked Julia

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Speaker 1: to visit the medical center before we arrived in Ukraine.

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Speaker 1: We wanted to see if she could figure out if

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Speaker 1: the priests were still involved or find a way for

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Speaker 1: us to get in touch with them through the center.

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Speaker 1: She found out that they did move on from running

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Speaker 1: the hospital because apparently it wasn't doing well. She said

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Speaker 1: stuff told her it was been running too much of

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Speaker 1: an American way. They had the philosophy of individual medicines.

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Speaker 1: It seemed not to work very well in Ukraine, probably

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Speaker 1: from some cultural differences. They still owned the facility but

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Speaker 1: rented everything to this new clinic. But something else happened.

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Speaker 1: While talking to the staff, without asking, someone gave Julia's

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Speaker 1: cell phone numbers for father, Went and Petro. We got

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Speaker 1: these phone numbers days before we left, and we debated

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Speaker 1: whether it was best to reach out before we got

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Speaker 1: there or not. On the one hand, we knew their

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Speaker 1: history and worried that if they knew we were coming,

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Speaker 1: they might do what they did before and leave. But

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Speaker 1: we also felt like we needed to let them know

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Speaker 1: about this podcast and that we would be trying to

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Speaker 1: talk to them when we got there. We were conflicted.

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Speaker 1: In the end, we decided to get advice from the

403
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Speaker 1: one person we knew who was closest to them, Mike.

404
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 1: We sent him an email asking what he thought was

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Speaker 1: best send the priests a message first or just show up.

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Speaker 1: He wrote back and said that if fathers went in.

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Speaker 1: Damien knew we were coming, they would probably try to hide,

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Speaker 1: and we did not want to risk going all the

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Speaker 1: way to Ukraine only for them to disappear. So after

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Speaker 1: visiting the hospital and dropping off our translator, Melanie den Us,

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Speaker 1: and I decided to just show up at the monastery

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Speaker 1: and see if they were willing to talk to us.

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Speaker 1: How did you find this place? One more time? Done us? Um?

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00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: I found it through father. You know that I'm not

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00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 1: friends with them on Facebook, but the father Damien had

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Speaker 1: pictures of them building a monastery, construction photos um the

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Speaker 1: town that they kept saying it was in. It is

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Speaker 1: I found that monastery and it is not that it

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Speaker 1: is not. And so what I ended up doing was

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Speaker 1: looking at other people who had commented on the photos

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Speaker 1: that they had put up and see where they were from.

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Speaker 1: And it kept saying that town. So I was like, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe if people who know this is coming and or

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00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 1: visiting there are from there, it's got to be close

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Speaker 1: to there. So I started I went on the map

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Speaker 1: and I just started looking around for any sort of

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Speaker 1: like thing that looked like new construction or a new build.

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00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 1: And I was looking at those photos realizing like it

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Speaker 1: needs to have trees in the background, so it needed

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Speaker 1: to be at the edge of one of these villages

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Speaker 1: or in the middle of the foreest. And so I

432
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 1: looked all around the on thett looking around, clicking around,

433
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:21,480
Speaker 1: and then I went into the woods and I found

434
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: that clearing and I said, what the hell was this

435
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 1: and this clearing and I assumed then and I was like,

436
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:30,440
Speaker 1: that's the building with the dome. It was the same

437
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 1: shape that has this area this like thing beside it

438
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: with bells. And then went and Damien both have pictures

439
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 1: of them in these houses that look like log cabins

440
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 1: and the buildings beside it, our buildings that look like

441
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 1: a little like log cabins, the words, and so I'm

442
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 1: just like this, it has this has to be something

443
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 1: that they built where they there. That's great detective work.

444
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: And it's like it's all, it's all. And then we

445
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 1: have confirmation from from Julia and then just show me

446
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: that thing today and I was like, that's it. Why

447
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 1: did she show you? There is a site and it's

448
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 1: a listing of monasteries I've come across about. She found

449
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 1: it because she started it in Ukrainian exactly, but she

450
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: started in Ukrainian and the name is slightly different, and

451
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: when you brought it up, we just confirmed. We looked

452
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 1: at the pictures that the pictures they have on there

453
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:19,960
Speaker 1: with the construction photels, and it's the same building, the

454
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 1: new monastery and homes they built. We're in a clearing

455
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:27,040
Speaker 1: about forty minutes outside of Uskarad. The land is isolated

456
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: on a mountain side. There's nothing but forest all around,

457
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 1: and the nearest neighbor was at least half a mile

458
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 1: away in a town across the river. This is the

459
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 1: moment we've been talking about so much that I can't

460
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: believe like we're here. I was nervous as we drove

461
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 1: there that morning. We debated whether or not this was

462
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: a good idea just to show up there unannounced. What

463
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 1: if they lived so remotely because they didn't want outsiders

464
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: coming there. What if they were armed and shot us

465
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 1: on site? Would anyone out here even no two minutes?

466
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 1: With that in mind, we booked our entire trip around

467
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: going to the monastery on a Sunday so we could

468
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 1: try to time our arrival just after Sunday liturgy when

469
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 1: there might be other people around. Knowing what we heard

470
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 1: about electric fences and security cameras at their place in

471
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 1: North Carolina. We didn't know what to expect. There's no

472
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: address for this monastery, so before we left, Paula and

473
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 1: I sent the coordinates of the property to our families

474
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:34,240
Speaker 1: just in case anything happened. You to go into the

475
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: two of us go in is yeah, okay, I'm just

476
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:43,640
Speaker 1: starting to get y. Yeah, I mean not starting. I've been,

477
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 1: but it's like we're getting closer and relaxed. People relax.

478
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 1: I'm kind of doing it for for my ex parents,

479
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 1: Like I'm going to knock on that door just to

480
00:32:53,760 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 1: ask them why they haven't called them. M As we

481
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 1: pulled off the main highway, we drove farther and farther

482
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 1: from town and deeper into the remote mountain forest. On

483
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 1: these rural back roads, the early winter snow started to

484
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:16,479
Speaker 1: fall harder and harder, coating the road and the trees

485
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: in a cold white quilt. This is feeling a little

486
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 1: the shining. This is very the shining. It completely changed.

487
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: Everything is different. I help see anything. Oh okay, I

488
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 1: see where we're going. Yeah, this is very uh hard

489
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 1: to find. There's a here, this is a location. You

490
00:33:51,000 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 1: have arrived and there's a van m When we approached

491
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 1: the entrance to the monastery, there was an old Soviet

492
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: looking van at the bottom of the driveway. The gate

493
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:13,400
Speaker 1: was open, but the drive was a rocky mountain trail

494
00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: that was steadily getting snow eier and snow eier. The

495
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:22,400
Speaker 1: hill was steep and through the narrow entrance between the trees,

496
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:27,320
Speaker 1: you couldn't see any buildings. It was like looking straight

497
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 1: up at the sky. The local people didn't was driving

498
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: up the hill, so neither would we. We parked on

499
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: the roadside and waited to see if anyone would return

500
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 1: to the van. After a few anxious minutes, Dennis, our producer,

501
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:47,319
Speaker 1: volunteered to walk up the hill to see if it

502
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 1: felt safe for us to enter the property. Dennis is

503
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:53,960
Speaker 1: working up there to explore and see what's going on.

504
00:34:54,520 --> 00:35:04,839
Speaker 1: I just hope he doesn't get or anything. Oh hello, yes, yes,

505
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:08,840
Speaker 1: I can. Okay, I'm gonna can you guys keep talking

506
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:11,720
Speaker 1: so I know I can hear you. Yes, absolutely, isn't okay,

507
00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:14,480
Speaker 1: Like I answered on the on the apple on the

508
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:18,319
Speaker 1: apple thinging and it's sound speaker. Yeah that's fun. Yeah,

509
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 1: that's fun. He's walking up all right, don it's gonna

510
00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:28,080
Speaker 1: be okay, can you hear me? It looks like all

511
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:35,320
Speaker 1: the footprints are leaving here. M Are they thank footprints?

512
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: It's just a man. No, don't a point women's shoes? Really? Yeah?

513
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: This done because you're staring at me. There are so

514
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: many gates up here, really yeah? Are they closed? No,

515
00:35:52,160 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 1: they're open, just some trees down. We definitely can't drive

516
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 1: up this. No, right, we can't. No, I wouldn't. It's

517
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 1: it's bad even the cars that have come up here.

518
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: Or I'll skit it out. Okay, that would explain why

519
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:20,520
Speaker 1: the van is down here. Yeah, this is not drivable. Dog,

520
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: it's not okay, happy to see me. Okay. If you're

521
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 1: scared of grab grab a rock or something. Stick, Yeah,

522
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 1: grab a stick. This is totally fenced off, even though

523
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 1: it's in a wood fenced off wire stop. I can't

524
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 1: see anybody else up here. I'm coming back down. Okay,

525
00:36:42,640 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 1: let me get over here. This is like a compound.

526
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 1: Is there like a doorbell or or a camera? Date

527
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: is open. I can't see any cameras, but there's a date.

528
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 1: It's open. Ship. I think somebody's coming, are you it's

529
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 1: by this dog? What if it's him? Is this dog

530
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, that's I don't know what it is

531
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 1: or not. I'm coming Okay, I'm just getting paranoid being

532
00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: up there. It's your cud. If you see this fence,

533
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 1: this fence will make you tar and like mind you

534
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 1: this is this is like dense forest stuff here. Okay,

535
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: get out, get over here. It seems kind of extremes. Okay,

536
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:31,799
Speaker 1: I don't think it's safe for us to do this,

537
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 1: Like nobody wants you to come up here. Okay, Like

538
00:37:39,120 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 1: I mean, but is there someone coming down? Do you

539
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 1: see someone coming down or at all? Or no? No

540
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:48,440
Speaker 1: not now okay, Yeah, we can't vibe up this, so

541
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 1: we have to walk up. This is not an easy

542
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 1: up or an easy down. Okay, it's easy. Okay. We

543
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:57,360
Speaker 1: we see you, We see you, We see you, we

544
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:02,240
Speaker 1: see you. I have man, you just get over here. Yeah,

545
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:14,080
Speaker 1: this is unsafety ice that sense that's that fence puts

546
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 1: me off. I mean it looks like you know when

547
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:18,400
Speaker 1: you see like government military property. Shut the funk up.

548
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 1: That's the type of thing. It's like, it's serious, it

549
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:28,839
Speaker 1: goes It's like we're taking that what the whole road

550
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 1: is all the way up just little stones, imbalanced okay, yeah, yeah, yeah,

551
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: I need springles. I'm so nervous. Okay you did, Yeah,

552
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 1: I'm good. That's just that that fence made me paranoid

553
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 1: because it's it's like the whole property is off as

554
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 1: if like don't come or it's not just like don't

555
00:38:56,880 --> 00:38:59,880
Speaker 1: drive up here, don't walk up here, don't come sucking anything.

556
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:03,360
Speaker 1: Let me see this. I would not drive up this

557
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 1: road out it because if you had to get out

558
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 1: of here, I mean you can see the tire tracks

559
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: for somebody going up there it was. It would probably

560
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:14,280
Speaker 1: need change. It's a struggle at this point. Honestly, guys,

561
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 1: I think that we should send them. At this point,

562
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 1: it feels like send him the note. We drove back

563
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 1: to us Garad and wrote a long message on the way.

564
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 1: We explained what we were doing in Ukraine, that I

565
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 1: was a former holy Cross student, and that we wanted

566
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: to hear their side of everything. We sent the message

567
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:45,920
Speaker 1: off to both numbers we've gotten Father Went and Petrol.

568
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: They were delivered and read on both ends, and we

569
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:52,280
Speaker 1: waited for a response. I know you got my message

570
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 1: today and I was just following up for only a

571
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 1: few days. We must I think you should figured we

572
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 1: heard nothing for hours, so we tried to call those

573
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:15,000
Speaker 1: numbers that evening, Hello, good evening is his father? Gregory went? No, Um,

574
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:23,479
Speaker 1: who am I speaking to Wed? We did, That's something

575
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:26,680
Speaker 1: we didn't plan for. What was somebody else to pick up?

576
00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: We did? Yeah, but not somebody. Who's who's going to

577
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 1: talk to you in English and sound like that? Who

578
00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:35,480
Speaker 1: the hell was that? We couldn't tell if it was

579
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 1: Petro or Went or neither of them. We started to

580
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:44,800
Speaker 1: worry if these were their phone numbers at all. Then

581
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:49,320
Speaker 1: around midnight a text finally came in. It was Petro.

582
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:53,360
Speaker 1: He said he wasn't interested in talking to us. He

583
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: also didn't believe that I was someone from Holy Cross.

584
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:00,680
Speaker 1: We were already in bed in our hotel rooms when

585
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 1: this message came in. We huddled up for an emergency

586
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:07,719
Speaker 1: meeting to figure out a response. We really wanted him

587
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:10,840
Speaker 1: to understand why we flew halfway across the world to

588
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 1: talk to them, that this show would be released whether

589
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 1: they spoke with us or not, and that at this

590
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:21,720
Speaker 1: point mihailoko Fell, a confessed murderer, was the main spokesperson

591
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 1: for what happened that Holy Cross, and that message changed

592
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: his mind. He agreed to talk with us privately at

593
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 1: our hotel the next day. Petro wanted to see if

594
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:37,400
Speaker 1: he remembered Paula and if the others from the monastery

595
00:41:37,520 --> 00:41:41,800
Speaker 1: could trust us. We were expecting Petro to be cold

596
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: and stand offish, based on his texts and the testimony

597
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:49,239
Speaker 1: videos we watched over and over through the years, but

598
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:52,680
Speaker 1: he was incredibly warmed towards both of us. In the

599
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:55,799
Speaker 1: hour or so that we talked, he really opened up

600
00:41:55,840 --> 00:42:00,439
Speaker 1: and we learned a lot. Petro was no longer a monk,

601
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 1: but an Orthodox priest. He was married and had a family.

602
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:06,760
Speaker 1: He also told us he was still on the board

603
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:10,200
Speaker 1: at the new medical center, but closing their clinic meant

604
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: there were other changes too. Petro told us that only

605
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 1: a few months earlier, after the hospital changed hands, Father

606
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:21,440
Speaker 1: Damien left Ukraine. Now he was back in North Carolina

607
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 1: with Vasile. Our team met in a cafe after the

608
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 1: talk with Petro to share what else we found out.

609
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:38,600
Speaker 1: Father dam Yeah, because they broke They have no money.

610
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: This ruined them, This ruined their list. The medical center

611
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 1: was a failure. They lost all their money there. There

612
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:48,879
Speaker 1: is so much debt. Father went lives within Petro's house

613
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:54,320
Speaker 1: with the family like Um. He said he was willing

614
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 1: to do a recorded interview and that he would talk

615
00:42:57,040 --> 00:43:00,880
Speaker 1: to Father Went about joining us well. He told us

616
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:08,240
Speaker 1: he'd send us a text later that day. We waited

617
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:11,799
Speaker 1: to hear back from Petro, and he finally messaged us

618
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 1: that evening. He sent a text saying Father Went would

619
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:18,240
Speaker 1: like to talk to us on the phone first before

620
00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:22,439
Speaker 1: agreeing to an interview, but he said the priest would

621
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: call us. It was already late on our last line

622
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:29,359
Speaker 1: in Usgarad. The next day, we planned to stop by

623
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 1: the Kofels as he was on the way back to Leviv.

624
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 1: We needed to leave by midday to avoid driving through

625
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 1: the mountains at night, and missed the worst of a

626
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: huge snowstorm that was expected to roll through in the evening.

627
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:45,760
Speaker 1: We stayed in Usgarad a little later than we wanted,

628
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 1: hoping to hear from Father Went or Petro. We reached out,

629
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 1: but we got nothing but silence. With the snowstorm coming,

630
00:43:54,600 --> 00:43:57,400
Speaker 1: we gave up and started making the four and a

631
00:43:57,440 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 1: half hour drive back to Leviv so we could catch

632
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: our flights to Miami early the next morning. Then about

633
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:13,680
Speaker 1: an hour into the drive, headphones and headphones. Oh the

634
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:19,640
Speaker 1: phone ratting. Hello, Hi, Father, so here, I'm here with

635
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:22,760
Speaker 1: funny Gregory here. You're going to talk to him out Okay, Oh,

636
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:25,759
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Petro Okay, I'm doing him the

637
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:37,040
Speaker 1: funky hello. Hi, Hello, Hello, Father Went. How are you doing.

638
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:39,359
Speaker 1: I'm a little long winded when I'm nervous, and I'm

639
00:44:39,480 --> 00:44:42,240
Speaker 1: very I'm nervous and excited to talk to you. I

640
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: was so nervous talking to Father Went. I imagined this

641
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:50,000
Speaker 1: moment for years, and we sat anxiously on the side

642
00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 1: of a rural Ukrainian road trying to convince him to

643
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 1: give us his side of the story. After almost an

644
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Speaker 1: hour on the phone, Father Went made up his mind.

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Speaker 1: I think it's more, and I think that you have

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Speaker 1: something that you would like to do and don't stand

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Speaker 1: it so wrong? What's it? So? Why not a dance?

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Speaker 1: What we can for you? We set a time to

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Speaker 1: meet with them at the monastery that evening. In a

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Speaker 1: few hours we'd be face to face with Father Abbott

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Speaker 1: Gregory Went. Sacred Scandal is a production of Exile Content

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Speaker 1: Studio in partnership with I Heart Radios Michael da Podcast Network.

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Speaker 1: Sacred Scandal was created and produced by Melanie Bartley and

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Speaker 1: me Paula Barrows. Our senior producer is Dennis Funk of

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Speaker 1: Written in Air. The executive producers are Rose Red and

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Speaker 1: Nando Villa. Production mixing and sound design by Helena de Grout.

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Speaker 1: Our production assistant is Imani Leonard. The show is fact

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Speaker 1: checked by Kimberly Winston. Original music and final audio mixing

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Speaker 1: comes from Patrick Hart and special thanks on this episode

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Speaker 1: to Julia TERASUK, Greta Weber, and Travis Roig. If you'd

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Speaker 1: like to reach out, email us at hello at Sacred

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Speaker 1: Scandal podcast dot com, and you can follow us on

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Speaker 1: Instagram at Sacred Scandal