Met. Luke: Expelling UOC from Lavra is like throwing stones at God’s Mother

Metropolitan Luke of Zaporizhia and Melitopol

Metropolitan Luke of Zaporizhia and Melitopol reminded officials who are trying to expel the UOC from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra of the true ownership of the monastery.

"The Lavra, the Dormition Cathedral, was founded by the Queen of Heaven herself and was built not for the needs of the state, but for prayer and monastic life. The Mother of God personally financed its construction, showing the architects the exact dimensions of the future church. 'I want to build My Church in Rus, in Kyiv, and I command you to do so. Take the gold,' said the Mother of God to the craftsmen. She also gave them the relics of the martyrs, which were placed in the foundation of the church, and entrusted them with her miraculous Dormition icon, which has saved Kyiv from enemy invasions on numerous occasions," wrote the bishop on his Telegram channel.

The hierarch added that the Queen of Heaven established this place for worship, not as a museum, a concert venue, a folk-art festival or other folklore activities.

"To turn the relics of the saints into 'exhibits', the Lavra into a 'Ukrainian pantheon' (literally a polytheism), to kill the prayerful spiritual life of the ancient monastery is equivalent to throwing stones at the face of the Mother of God and those saints whose relics rest in the caves. One does not need to be a prophet or a seer to understand the consequences that such audacity will have for those mad men who act in this way," noted His Eminence.

However, Metropolitan Luka emphasized that the Mother of God is always with those people who remain faithful to the Church of Christ.

"We are grateful to the Lord for allowing us to live in a time when faith in God and trust in His providence are being tested. The issue at hand is not as the politically biased media portray it. It is not about loyalty to one jurisdiction or another, but about whether we will remain faithful to Christ and the Gospel, whether we will serve Caesar or God, whether we will confess anti-Christian values and blasphemous morality or remain faithful to God's commandments," declared the bishop.

Earlier, it was reported that Tkachenko announced an active cultural life in the Lavra after the expulsion of the UOC from there.

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