Reserve: Relics should not be just items lying in storerooms

Holy relics in the Lavra Caves. Photo: lavra.ua

Maksym Ostapenko, Acting General Director of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve, said that after the UOC is banished from the Lavra, the relics of the saints should not "become objects that will lie somewhere in storerooms."

In an interview with radiosvoboda.org, Ostapenko said that the monastery "has a large number of museum exhibits, including relics – they were once removed from the museum fund and transferred to the monastery, and now a decision has been made to return them."

“A large number of brethren, monks pray, perform ritual actions and serve the relics stored in the caves,” the official said. “We need to find a mechanism for how the monks can continue their actions, provided for by the Orthodox canons.”

At the same time, he failed to answer the question of whether there would be a functioning monastery in the Lavra.

“Now this issue is being studied at different levels, because monks performing actions regarding holy relics are a certain ritual, a certain ritual, which should remain unambiguous. And how this will be done should be agreed upon at the level of the clergy, at the level of state bodies responsible for religious policy. Because it is impossible to admit that the same relics will simply turn into some objects that will lie somewhere in storerooms,” said the head of the reserve.

As the UOJ wrote, earlier the holy relics of the Venerable Kyiv-Pechersk Fathers were called "museum exhibits" by the Minister of Culture Olexandr Tkachenko.

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