Met Pavel comments on the govt decision to expel UOC from the Lavra

Metropolitan Pavel (Lebed). Photo: www.uain.press

The abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel (Lebed) of Vyshhorod and Chornobyl, commented on the decision of the authorities to expel the UOC from the Lavra.

The video of the sermon in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra was published on the YouTube channel “Lavra. The Way of Salvation.”

“Today our Church is shaken by sad events. Probably, the Apocalypse begins in Ukraine because it has great shrines, Kyiv is called the second Jerusalem, all of our Holy Rus', Ukraine and other cities are covered with the relics of the saints of God,” said the Lavra’s abbot.

According to him, the devil cannot stand it when believers pray, so he does everything possible to stop prayer in the Lavra.

“There are people who dream of desecrating everything they can ... they desecrated the Assumption and Refectory Cathedrals, people who do not hesitate to put on clothes that do not belong to them; some were even ordained by us and with us, but they went to the council of the wicked, as the traitor Judas did,” he added.

The governor of the Lavra spoke about the consequences the UOC is reaping because of the situation with Filaret Denisenko.

“After the seizure of the Vladimir Church in Kyiv by Filaret or rather, when we simply left there, when His Beatitude Metropolitan Vladimir did not want blood, we did not think that evil would go so far. Everybody thought that a man who had lived 60 years in the Church would come to his senses, but Satan did not give him or his children peace of mind. He was trampled by his own spiritual children and today they have taken over us,” he continued.

Metropolitan Pavel urged the faithful not to stand aside and defend the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra by all legal means.

"Brothers and sisters, you must not stand aside because "Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven” (Matt. 10:32-36). We elected these deputies and today we must give an answer: as we elected, so we can dismiss, as is customary in the democratic world. We must defend our faith; we must not shame the Church, even if they shoot me. I'm not afraid of death. We are not for riots, not for revolutions, we ask to let us pray as we want, as we have been taught,” he said.

“Today the main thing is to hit the bishops: there are no bishops, there is no Church. And who does it? Lawless people who have nothing to do with God,” Metropolitan Pavel continued and told how he built the Assumption Cathedral, from which the UOC has now been expelled.

As the UOJ previously reported, the Ministry of Culture hinted at how the monks could stay in the Lavra.

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