UOC hierarch: No one has seen state commission on Lavra and its conclusion

Metropolitan Clement (Vecheria), head of the Information and Education Department of the UOC. Photo: church.ua

No one has seen the interdepartmental commission in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, which allegedly checked the observance of the agreement on the use of the monastery buildings by the Church, and the conclusions of this commission are being concealed by the authorities, said the head of the Synodal Information and Education Department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Clement of Nizhyn and Pryluki, at a press conference.

"We are offered to take for granted the reports of officials that there was a result of the work of some commission,” the bishop said. “By the way, no one has seen this commission and we do not know what it was doing in the territory of the reserve, what documents they were acquainted with. Representatives of the Lavra did not sign any acts, any results of the checks".

According to the Metropolitan, the Ministry of Culture replied to the request of the UOC lawyers that the results of the expertise of the interdepartmental commission are classified as official secrets and no one can become acquainted with them.

"It became known to us that those who were allowed to carry out this so-called expertise refused to sign the results, understanding their illegality. And today they are looking for people who could sign this "document", on the basis of which they plan to commit the illegal eviction of monks from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra," the metropolitan said.

He noted that "if the Ministry of Culture has nothing to hide, if the truth is obvious, then why put a stamp of secrecy and limit access to documents that now have such a wide public resonance?"

"All this gives us reason to believe that manipulation is taking place in order to seize a property complex in which believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and, in particular, the monastery have invested a lot of money. This raider method is not used to appropriate the foundations and remains of buildings that were given to us in 1988, but the restored, refurbished churches and buildings of the world-famous monastery," the archpastor said.

He also refuted statements of representatives of the Ministry of Culture, "as if the monastery has harmed some architectural monuments in the territory of the reserve, as if something was improperly kept here and it became the reason to break the agreement of free usage".

"We want to once again persistently refute these statements and say that they have nothing to do with reality," the Metropolitan said. “UNESCO included the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, including those buildings that are in the Lower Lavra, to the list of the world cultural heritage sites, and this happened exactly after they have been reconstructed and restored by our monastery. Our Ministry can hardly be more qualified than the experts of the UNESCO world organization.”

The head of the UOC Information Department stressed that the essence of what is happening is not the Ministry of Culture's concern for the preservation of cultural heritage, but the creation by officials of a pretext for pressure on the Church: "The Minister of Culture Mr Tkachenko began by talking about non-compliance with storage conditions of architectural monuments on the territory of the Kyiv Caves Monastery – allegedly it is the cause of this conflict, and today he says that in principle everyone can stay in the Laura – as long as the heads of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church go away. We can qualify such statements of the official as pressure and attempts to discriminate against citizens of Ukraine on the religious ground.”

As reported, the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will meet on 20 March to decide on the actions of the UOC in response to the authorities' demand to leave the territory of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

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