UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate urged to defend the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate appealed today to the faithful, calling on them to defend the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra by all legal means. Ukrainian authorities require Orthodox monks to leave the monastery by March 29. The video message was published today by the abbot of the Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel. He said he wasn’t going anywhere.

“We were given time – two weeks before March 29 to move out of the monastery. We will not be able to do this under any pretext, we simply do not have a place to take it all, and we do not intend to leave anything”– he said.

The metropolitan also reproached the Ukrainian authorities for their disrespectful attitude towards church hierarchs. He recalled how the other day all the members of the Synod, elderly bishops, stood for several hours near the office of Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, waiting for a meeting with the president, but he never came out. The viceroy declared: “If the state does this, then it is worthless on a market day.”

Let me remind you that official Kyiv put forward an ultimatum to the Ukrainian Orthodox: they either go over to the non-canonical OCU, or they will be expelled from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra by force.