Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ appealed to the world community with a request not to allow the Ukrainian authorities to expel the monks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. The recipients were Pope Francis, UN Secretary General António Guterres, OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid, head of the Anglican Communion Justin Welby and other religious and political leaders.
As stated in the appeal, excerpts from which are published on website The Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill asked the international community to “make every possible effort to prevent the forced closure of the monastery.” In his opinion, this will lead to a violation of the rights of millions of Ukrainian believers to freedom of religion, which are guaranteed by the Ukrainian constitution, the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international declarations.
“Throughout the thousand-year history of the monastery, she (Lavra.— “uh”) repeatedly suffered from raids, foreign conquests and outright persecution of Christians. But only during the reign of the militant atheistic authorities in the 20th century, the monastics of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra were expelled from the monastery, ”the appeal says.
The Patriarch noted that the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is the first monastery of Kievan Rus, which has existed since the 11th century, “the founder of the common spiritual and monastic tradition of the Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian peoples, the cradle of our civilization and national cultures.” According to him, new generations of monks revived the Lavra “with minimal government assistance, or even the absence of it.”
According to the patriarch, the authorities have no legal justification for the decision to evict the UOC. “It is regrettable that when the state leadership of Ukraine declares its commitment to democratic norms, the European path of development, respect for human rights and freedoms, these rights and freedoms are trampled today in the most blatant way,” he added.
The National Reserve “Kiev-Pechersk Lavra” until March 29 demanded that the UOC leave the territory of the Lavra. The decision was justified by the identified violations of the terms of the agreement on gratuitous use. Metropolitan Pavel, rector of the monastery of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, in January called the actions of the Ukrainian authorities persecution of the church.
