Metropolitan Pavel, vicar of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra monastery, himself announced that he had received a search warrant from the Ukrainian authorities. The monastery is home to a branch of Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine that is traditionally loyal to Patriarch Kirill, a leader of the Russian church, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and a supporter of war against Ukraine.
“Now my house will be searched,” the metropolitan said, adding that he was accused of “collaboration with Russia and interreligious incitement.” “They also say that I cursed President Zelensky,” Pavel said, noting that the reference is to his quotation of Gospel verses.
Today is a new round of conflict around the Pechersk Lavra in Kiev after Ukrainian Orthodoxy cut ties with Moscow last May and declared “full independence”. On March 29, the clergy of the pro-Russian Ukrainian Orthodox Church had received the order to leave the historic cave monastery complex. For days the faithful of the Russian rite have been stationed in front of the religious building. Ukraine’s culture minister, Oleksandr Tkachenko, had offered them to stay, but only on the condition that they move to the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
The Monastery of the Caves of Kiev, is an ancient monastery, founded in 1051 by the monks Anthony and Theodosius, located on Mount Berestov in the Ukrainian capital and a short distance from the national museum of the Holodomor Genocide and the Memorial of Eternal Glory.
