Ukraine will not allow Russia to have the opportunity to manipulate spirituality and destroy our laurels, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said.
“There is a movement this week to strengthen our spiritual independence. Society sees it. And I see the approval of the Ukrainians for these steps of ours – they are completely legal. And we will continue this movement of ours. We will not allow the terrorist state to have any opportunity to manipulate the spirituality of our people, to destroy Ukrainian shrines – our laurels – or to steal any valuables from them,” he said in his video address.
On March 10, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve announced the termination of the lease agreement with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).
The UOC (MP) stated that in the letter of the management of the National Reserve “Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra” “there is no information about the legal grounds for such actions. As for the work of the group mentioned in the letter (the Interdepartmental Working Group), the content of its conclusions was not reported anywhere, and they were drawn up, obviously, biased and in gross violation of legal norms.”
The UOC (MP) claims that the only reason for their eviction from the Lavra “is the whim of officials from the Ministry of Culture.”
Read also: Tkachenko: termination of the contract applies to “all premises rented by the UOC in Lavra”
At the end of 2022, the “Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra” reserve informed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (MP) that, as of January 1, it was not renewing the contract for the use of the Assumption Cathedral and the Tabernacle Church.
In December of last year, the SBU published a list of 10 people who were included in the “church list” of NSDC sanctions. Among them, in particular, a cleric of the UOC (MP), ex-deputy Vadym Novinsky and the vicar of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Pavlo (Petro Lebid).
