Russian abbot warns monks off internet

Bishop Pankraty wants the monks at Valaam Monastery to spend less time surfing the web

The abbot of an historic Russian monastery has warned that smartphones and the internet are distracting monks from their devotions.

Bishop Pankraty of Valaam Monastery in Karelia says: "All these smartphones and screens are a great temptation, especially for young monks, and one of the greatest challenges facing modern monastic life." He complains to Argumenty i Fakty newspaper that some monks confess to him that the "Devil had led them astray again with this internet", and one novice even left Valaam after "wallowing in the Web". He worries that his 150 charges will end up "writing blogs, chatting on forums, and posting blessings and anathemas", as happens in other monasteries in Russia and abroad.

Bishop Pankraty is setting an example by giving up the internet himself, hastening to add that he only ever used it for "keeping up with religious and current affairs, sending emails, and checking the weather" on Lake Ladoga in northern Russia - home to the remote island where Valaam Monastery stands.

He acknowledges that it would be difficult to ban phones altogether, and suggests giving access to simple handsets as a reward for virtuous behaviour, as in the monasteries of Mount Athos in Greece. The bishop has his own smartphone, and notes ruefully that its halfbitten apple trademark is a vivid reminder of how "Adam and Eve sinned before God".

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