The Russian Orthodox Church
Department for External Church Relations
Department for External Church Relations
The Russian Orthodox Church
Department for External Church Relations
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Ukrainian Orthodox Church clergy and parishioners have recorded a video appeal in defence of the Kiev Lavra of the Caves
The clergy and parishioners of several dioceses of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have recorded a video appeal to the Ukrainian authorities calling them not to take off the Kiev Lavra of the Caves. As the Union of Orthodox Journalists reports, the video appeal is published by the Public Union ‘Miryane’ (Laity).
‘We ask to prolong the leasing contract of the Lower Lavra of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’, the appeal reads, ‘As far back as the Middle Ages, the Lavra was the breading ground of Orthodoxy and today it remains to be a center of Orthodox pilgrimage. Under the militant atheism, the Lavra fell into decay. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been restoring this holy monastery since 1988. Today, at the site where only ruins used to be, golden cupolas are sparkling magnificently. The clergy and laity of the Lavra work daily exerting great efforts to maintain order in the monastery. It is for this reason that we consider it unjust to take away from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church clergy the permission to serve in this holy place. Let the icon-lamp continue gleaming here so that the faithful could freely come here to celebrate the Sacred Mysteries of Christ and venerate the saints of the Caves’.
According to the faithful, nowhere in the world, the relics of saints are ‘museum exhibits’. ‘Just imagine that the relics of Nicholas the Wonder-worker in Italy were made ‘an exhibit’, or the Church of the Lord’s Sepulchre in Jerusalem was closed for people and became a museum’.
The parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church reminded the authorities that a hundred years ago the Orthodox Christians in Ukraine ‘already endured similar trials, and it did not bring any good to theomachists’.
‘Do not take the Lavra from us. You will take away the walls but not the faith’, the appeal stressed.
Taking part in the recording of the video were the clergy and faithful from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Dioceses of Vladimir-Volynsky, Volyn, Dnepropetrovsk, Zhitomir, Kharkov, Kiev, Kirovograd, Odessa, Rovno, Sarny, Ternopol and Chernovitsy-Bukovina, as well as from Poland.
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