Russian Foreign Ministry Says Seizure of Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Illegitimate, Immoral

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The situation with the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is the Kiev authorities’ illegitimate act from the legal point of view and an immoral act from the spiritual point of view, the Russian Foreign Ministry says.

"The seizure of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is an act of the current authorities in Kiev that is illegitimate from a legal and immoral from a spiritual point of view. It is more indicative than many other steps of the regime and its rhetoric, it proves its criminal nature, readiness to disregard the feelings and, most importantly, the rights of people, including citizens of Ukraine," the ministry said on Telegram.

The ministry stressed that the regime of President Volodymyr Zelensky is not independent in its anti-clerical policy, the split of Orthodoxy is a goal being pursued by Washington.

"At many levels, ecclesiastical and secular authorities drew the attention of the world’s ecclesiastical and international communities to the current new round of violations of the civil rights of believers ... The lack of a decisive reaction on the part of addressees from among the leaders of international organizations is very significant," the Russian Foreign Ministry said, referring to appeals made by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia to several ecclesiastical leaders and representatives of international organizations, including the United Nations, not to allow monks to get evicted from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.

Tensions between Kiev and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) escalated after Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022.

On March 10, 2023, UOC monks were ordered to leave the monastery of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, (jurisdiction over which was divided between a Ukrainian cultural organization and the UOC) by March 29 for violating the terms of an agreement on the use of state property. Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said the monks could stay in the Lavra if they joined the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), a decision that may be "stimulated through the joint work of specialists and law enforcement officers."

On Saturday, a court in Kiev put Metropolitan Bishop Pavel, vicegerent of the contested Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, under house arrest for 60 days and barred him from communicating with believers. Ukrainian authorities conducted searches in his house.