Church accused of Russia ties resists Kyiv monastery eviction

Members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Monastery refused entry to the representatives of the government commission.

On Thursday, a scuffle broke out at a monastery in Kiev after a Ukrainian branch of the Orthodox Church, which the government says has ties to Russia, defied an eviction order.

Tensions over the presence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in the 980-year-old Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Monastery have risen since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February.

Kiev has accused the UOC of having ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, which supported Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The UOC has said it cut all ties with the Russian Church in May 2022.

Hours after a deadline to leave the monastery passed at midnight on Wednesday, members of the UOC refused entry to representatives of a government commission seeking to inspect buildings in the sprawling gold-domed complex.

Shortly afterwards, skirmishes broke out, Reuters news agency reports. No one was injured.

Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko later condemned the “brutal” treatment of the committee members. He said in a statement that the government had lodged a complaint with the police and inspection of the buildings would continue on Friday.

The UOC is Ukraine’s second largest church, although most Ukrainian Orthodox believers belong to a separate branch of the faith, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, formed four years ago by uniting branches independent of authority from Moscow.

Russia condemned Kiev’s push against the UOC as an outrage and a crime.

“Such actions are increasingly plunging Ukraine into the Middle Ages in the worst sense of the word,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on the Telegram app.

The deputy head of a Ukrainian state body responsible for the monastery said earlier this month that a government commission was being set up to make decisions on issues related to the UOC’s lease on the monastery.

The government alleged that the monks violated their lease by making changes to the historic site and other technical violations. The UOC monks disputed any violations, calling the allegations a pretext.

The Ukrainian government is cracking down on the UOC because of its historical ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader, Patriarch Kirill, supported Russian President Vladimir Putin in invading Ukraine.

The UOC has insisted on its loyalty to Ukraine, denounced the Russian invasion and even declared independence from Moscow.

But Ukrainian security services have claimed that some in the Ukrainian church have maintained close ties to Moscow.

They raided numerous Church holy sites and later posted photographs of rubles, Russian passports and pamphlets with messages from the Moscow Patriarch as proof that some Church officials have been loyal to Russia.

Many Orthodox communities in Ukraine have cut their ties with the UOC, which was once one of the main sources of Russian influence in Ukraine.

They gradually passed to the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine after it received recognition from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, who is considered first among equals among the leaders of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, but who lacks the universal power of a pope .

The Moscow patriarchs and most other Orthodox patriarchs refused to accept that designation which formalized a break with the Russian Church.