Ukrainian Ministry of Culture has forbidden the faithful to pray in the caves of Kiev Lavra of the Caves

DECR Communication Service, 21.12.2023.

On March 20, the monastery received a letter from the administration of the National Preserve ‘Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra’ notifying it that from now on the museum will discontinue the access to the Far and Near Caves due to the work of a commission which will define the the safekeeping level of the ‘cultural valuables (precisely how the Ministry of Culture representatives refer to the relics of saints and other Lavra’s shrines). This is reported by the Information-Education Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

The faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have also been forbidden to worship in the three churches of the Kiev Lavra of the Caves: the Church of the Elevation of the Cross, the Conception of Anna and the Synaxis of All the Venerable Fathers of the Kiev Lavra of the Caves. This is reported by the head of the Information-Education Department, Metropolitan Clement of Nezhyn and Priluki.

The letter from an official of the Ministry of Culture states that ‘due to the formation of a commission which is to define ‘the availability, safety and condition of the cultural valuables’, ‘access to the objects (that is churches and caves) will be limited’. Considering the fact that Ukraine’s Minister of Culture A. Tkachenko refers to the relics of the Venerable Kievo-Pechersky Fathers as ‘cultural valuables’, arouses concern as to the method of defining the safety of these shrines. Indeed, in the totalitarian Soviet time, the atheistic authorities used to hold wide campaigns accompanied by outrage upon shrines as relics were taken out from reliquaries; shrouds were taken from them in order to describe them in detail and to display them at museum showcases.

The closure of the Caves by the preserve without warning is an unprecedented limitation of the rights of the Ukrainian faithful, who are en masse coming these days from various regions to venerate the shrines of the Kiev Lavra of the Caves.

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Ukrainian Ministry of Culture has forbidden the faithful to pray in the caves of Kiev Lavra of the Caves

Patriarch

Department Chairman

Sermons

Patriarch

Department Chairman

Sermons