Ostapenko calls the book by OCU "hierarch" Moscow propaganda

Director of the Lavra Lavra Reserve Maksym Ostapenko, Photo: a screenshot of the YouTube channel “Ukrainska Pravda”

Director of the Reserve "Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra" Maksym Ostapenko said in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda why, in his opinion, Lavra was "the centre of the Russian world".

Ostapenko showed journalists the images of the royal Passion-Bearers found in the Lavra's buildings, old church calendars with photos of Patriarchs Alexis and Kirill. But especially he drew attention to printed materials defending the canons of the Church.

In particular, he picked up a brochure by former Metropolitan Oleksandr (Drabinko), "Why schismatic groups in Ukraine are called non-canonical", calling it "solid propaganda published either in Russia or based on Russian narratives."

"Everything is published either in Moscow or St. Petersburg," Ostapenko said, admitting that "some of these materials are outdated". "But I understand how Ukrainians have been pumped for decades," he emphasized.

The Director of the Reserve was particularly outraged that in the pastoral word of Metropolitan Onuphry in the calendar for 2023, "there is not a single word about war or tortured children," and in liturgical directives, the word "Ukraine" appears only in the title of His Beatitude.

As earlier reported, according to Ostapenko, the Russian Orthodox Church allegedly declared anathema to St Petro Mohyla.

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