About the fallen cross in the Lavra
Peeling walls of the All Saints "Mazepa" Church in the Lavra. Photo: SES
On March 8, a cross fell from one of the domes of the All Saints Church in the Upper Lavra – the very church built by Mazepa. It was in this church that the National Reserve and the OCU held a widely publicized memorial service for the patron in 2024.
At that time, many interior photos were shared, but the exterior of the church was conspicuously absent. And for good reason. The church’s peeling walls have been in desperate need of repairs for years. And the cross didn’t fall because of a storm – there was no storm. The weather was calm and clear. It simply "got tired," as Klitschko might put it.
The Upper Lavra, where this "Mazepa" church stands, is under the jurisdiction of the National Reserve. It receives generous funding, yet none of it seems to reach the upkeep of the Lavra. In 2024 alone, nearly 30 million was spent on unjustified salary bonuses for employees.
This is what our "patriotic" Ministry of Culture calls love for Mazepa – peeling walls and neglect.
And there’s no doubt that if the monks are expelled and the Lower Lavra is "returned" to the state, its pristine buildings and churches will soon "get tired" too.
It is especially symbolic that the cross in the Lavra fell right after the creation of a commission to "inspect" the relics of the Venerable Fathers of the Caves. There are no coincidences like this.
Read also
Our raider–officials should brace themselves?
Someday the Zelensky era will end. And when it does, there will be plenty of claims to answer for. The war against Orthodoxy will be among the chief indictments.
State and Churches: For Catholics – restitution; for Orthodox – confiscation
Shouldn’t DESS be campaigning for the Kyiv Caves Lavra to be returned to the Church after the Bolsheviks expelled the monks a hundred years ago and turned it into a “museum complex”?
Why the idea of a "national Church" is doomed
According to the most optimistic estimates, the population of Ukraine is now no more than 19 million. The figure is shocking, especially when you remember that at the beginning of independence, 52 million people lived in the country.
"The UOC doesn’t hold funerals for soldiers": a lie-manufacturing machine
At the end of December, a wave of outrage swept across the internet over claims that UOC priests refused to serve a funeral for a fallen soldier in the Bukovynian village of Banyliv-Pidhirnyi. So what actually happened there?
Budanov instead of Yermak: Will anything change for the UOC?
Will the new head of the Presidential Office use the post to wage war against the UOC?
“Should Bandera's birthday occur…”
Congratulations are posted for Bandera’s birthday on the pages of three popular OCU “priest-bloggers.” However, there are no publications at all dedicated to Basil the Great or to the Feast of the Circumcision.