The crosses on prime of the Refectory Church in Kyiv’s Pechersk Lavra holy website have turned from gold to black.
Or so mentioned Metropolitan Onufriy, the pinnacle of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, after its monks and monks — deemed by Kyiv to be stooges of Moscow — had been ordered by the federal government to vacate the cave monastery website in Ukraine’s capital by the top of the month.
“Orthodox people are very sad and desperate,” mentioned Lyudmila, a customer to the sprawling complicated and a follower of Onufriy’s church. “They are trying to kill our faith.”
With its church buildings, monasteries and catacombs housing the relics of saints, the 1,000-year-old Lavra is without doubt one of the most sacred locations within the Eastern Orthodox faith. It has additionally change into a brand new battleground in Ukraine’s battle to shake off Russian affect and management.
The UOC, the biggest non secular group in Ukraine, was till just lately subordinate to the patriarchate in Moscow and a bastion of Russian affect.
But it has been in turmoil since Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine final yr, triggering a backlash amongst parishioners and a few of its monks towards Russian ecclesiastical management and the church’s Moscow patriarch Kirill, a staunch supporter of the conflict.
In May final yr, Onufriy declared independence from the Moscow patriarchy. But the transfer didn’t persuade its smaller rival, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, led by Metropolitan Epiphanius, which broke away from Russian management in 2018. Nor has it satisfied the Ukrainian authorities. They each say the UOC remains to be underneath Russian ecclesiastical and political management.
Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s nationwide safety chief, mentioned the monks and monks within the Lavra had even been infiltrated by spies from Russia’s federal safety service or FSB.
Archbishop Yevstratiy, a spokesman for the pro-Kyiv OCU, mentioned Ukraine’s safety companies had demonstrated that its bigger rival was nonetheless subordinate to the Moscow patriarchate which was “not a real religious institution, but part of the Kremlin”.
“The Lavra is like the sacred heart of Ukraine,” mentioned Yevstratiy. “Moscow understands that, as long as it holds this heart in its hand, Russian influence will return, that it will conquer Ukraine and reimpose sacred unity.”
“We don’t have any connections,” retorted Metropolitan Kliment, a spokesman for the UOC church. “There is no subordination. We are not coordinating [with Moscow].”
Ukrainian authorities have for months been tightening the screws on Onufriy’s church. In November, counter-intelligence brokers raided the Lavra and a number of different websites as a part of an investigation into pro-Russian affect operations.
In December a priest was arrested for main a service with an allegedly pro-Russian chant whereas different main figures within the UOC had been sanctioned over their ties to Moscow.
On March 10, the tradition ministry, which formally owns the Lavra website, mentioned Onufriy’s church had violated the phrases of its lease and wouldn’t have it renewed after it expires on March 29.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had beforehand distanced himself from the tussle between Ukraine’s church buildings, has endorsed the clear-out of the Lavra as a “movement to strengthen our spiritual independence”. Zelenskyy, born to Jewish dad and mom, just isn’t non secular.
But the top of the lease units the scene for a tense stand-off between Ukrainian legislation enforcement and Onufriy’s monks and monks, who’ve vowed to remain and struggle the eviction within the courts.
“It’s not a good look,” mentioned a European diplomat, who feared the dispute might hand a propaganda victory to Moscow.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned on Friday the top of the Lavra lease for UOC clergy and monks “confirms the correctness of the special operation in Ukraine” — the Russian authorities’s time period for the conflict.
Kyiv has promised to not evict the UOC monks and monks by power.
“Ukraine is a democratic, tolerant European country,” mentioned tradition minister Oleksandr Tkachenko. “No one is raising the question of evicting monks. We are talking about the return of property owned by the state, both moveable and immovable.”
UOC spokesman Kliment mentioned Zelenskyy and his ministers had been utilizing the Lavra dispute to distract consideration from corruption and the heavy human toll of the conflict.
“Now there are large numbers of people we bury every day. Instead of this drama, they offer us a soap opera that runs until March 29.”
“Of course there are those who did support Russia and the Russian military but not the whole church,” Sergei Chapnin, senior fellow in Orthodox Christian research at Fordham University within the US. Chapnin mentioned the Lavra dispute might have been defused had Onufriy eliminated among the senior clerics who had flaunted their pro-Moscow sympathies and connections.
But now the Ukrainian authorities had waded right into a “battle between churches” that it couldn’t win as a result of it must clarify to the church’s many trustworthy and to Kyiv’s allies why it had made this transfer. It would even have to select up the price of operating the Lavra.
“We are praying,” mentioned Lyudmila. “We don’t know what more we can do to prove that we are Ukrainians. We are not citizens of Russia.”
