Ministry of Culture suggests including Stolypin's remains in exchange fund

Maksym Ostapenko at Piotr Stolypin's tomb in Lavra. Photo: screenshot of the YouTube channel "1+1"

Maksym Ostapenko, the director of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Reserve, in an interview with "1+1", stated that the remains of Piotr Stolypin, which rest at the Refectory Church of the Lavra, should be included in the exchange fund.

"One of the ideas is to include him in the exchange fund, no matter how it looks or sounds (Ostapenko couldn't find the right word – Ed.). We have fallen heroes, we have living heroes who are in captivity, we have our Ukrainian outstanding figures who are within the Russian Federation and who are abandoned, and no one knows where they are. This process can be started off," emphasized Ostapenko.

He also claimed that over the past year, as the UOC was effectively expelled from the Lavra, more Ukrainians allegedly began to visit there. Ostapenko spoke about some people who came to the Lavra 15 years ago but then stopped to return now, during Ostapenko's tenure as director of the reserve.

"People were grabbed by the hands, they were told that they looked wrong, talked wrong, because neither Ukrainian nor embroidered shirts are allowed here," the reserve director recounted the "horrors" that "took place" in the Lavra.

Among other things, he stated that under the UOC, men at the Lavra were forcibly made to wear skirts.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that, according to Ostapenko, the ROC declared anathema on St. Peter Mohyla.

Read also