Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra urges Local Churches to pray for the protection of UOC

Abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Metropolitan Pavel with the brethren. Photo: lavra.ua

The clergy and brethren of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra appealed to all the monasteries of the Local Orthodox Churches with a request to pray for peace in Ukraine, as well as for protection from persecution, harassment and discrimination of the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“Today, with great pain, we have to state that, at the calls of the leadership of the ostensibly new, alternative ‘Orthodox Church of Ukraine’, state bodies are refusing to register the charters and changes to the charters of our religious organizations, searches are being carried out, criminal cases are being initiated, sanctions are being imposed, bank accounts are being blocked, all sorts of obstacles are being created to the celebration of divine services, churches are being illegally and forcibly seized, clergymen and parishioners are being beaten and expelled,” the appeal published on the Lavra’s website says.

The Lavra’s monastics state that although all religious organizations are equal before the law under Ukrainian legislation, “OCU organizations of the same name are registered in the places of our shrines, which are raided and seized.”

“Even if we don’t delve into the problem of the canonicity of this or that church, we can’t answer a simple question: how can any Christian pray in a church with robbers who expelled members of the Body of Christ from this shrine?” the appeal says.

“We also inform you that currently, we are deprived of the right to perform services in the largest churches of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, namely in the Refectory Church, which we completely restored, and the Assumption Cathedral, which we literally raised from the ruins – the greatest Orthodox shrine in the world. Since January 7 of this year, the OCU has been serving there,” writes the brethren of the Lavra.

The authors of the appeal, on behalf of the monasticism of the entire UOC, asked the inhabitants of the Orthodox monasteries of the world "to raise their voices with an appeal to those in power to put an end to the incitement of interfaith hatred in our long-suffering state."

As the UOJ reported, earlier the clergy and brethren of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra refuted the statements of Epifaniy Dumenko that they were allegedly going to join the OCU.

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