MOSCOW, July 1 Decision of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine about the eviction of monks from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is arbitrariness and terror, said Vladimir Legoyda, chairman of the Synodal Department of the Moscow Patriarchate for relations between the Church, society and the media, on the Telegram channel.
«The decision of the Ukrainian authorities to stop the access of monks to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is another act of flagrant arbitrariness. In Ukraine, with the full connivance of the world community, terror against the UOC continues,» he wrote.
Legoyda compared this decision with anti-church persecution in the 20-30s of the 20th century, while noting that at that time from the West «there were at least words of condemnation against the godless, now — only silence, which can be considered as a sign of support for the persecution.»
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“Apparently, the Ukrainian Church is viewed as an enemy, because it has a common spiritual heritage with the Russian Church, and this is enough to consider it sentenced to liquidation. <…> History will put everything in its place, modern theomachists will be remembered with shame and contempt, as well as the theomachists of the 20th century,» summed up the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Earlier on Saturday, the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine called on the monks of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church to 4 July to vacate the premises of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. As emphasized in the department, in case of refusal to hand over the keys to the buildings, «the locks will be replaced, and the buildings will be sealed.» demanded that the monks leave the monastery by the end of the month. However, as Alexander Tkachenko, head of the department, stated, the monks could have stayed if they had agreed to move to the schismatic OCU.
The UOC stated that termination of the lease agreement is impossible unilaterally, and the court decisions no.
The abbot of the monastery, Metropolitan Pavel, assured that the brethren intended to stand to the end. Later, the abbot was placed under house arrest on charges of inciting religious hatred and supporting the actions of Russia.