Metropolitan of Bulgarian Church condemns desecration of Lavra relics
Metropolitan Gabriel of Lovech. Photo: Facebook page of the Diocese of Lovech
On 4 April 2025, Metropolitan Gabriel of Lovech of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church read out a letter from the Bulgarian clergy addressed to Metropolitan Theodosiy of Cherkasy at a priests' conference in the city of Troyan, reports the UOJ website in Bulgaria.
The letter, accepted by the clergy of the Troyan district, expressed deep sympathy over the barbaric seizure of St. Archangel Michael's Cathedral. The letter contains a call for punishment of the guilty and the return of the church to its rightful owners – the Cherkasy Eparchy led by Metropolitan Theodosiy.
The participants of the conference also prayed to God and the Kyiv-Pechersk saints to prevent further desecration of their holy relics and for the swift return of these sanctities to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the omophorion of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufriy of Kyiv and All Ukraine.
Earlier, the UOJ reported that a theologian from Greece appealed to the heads of the Churches over the sacrilege in the Lavra.
Read also
Court releases Metropolitan Arseniy to house arrest
Bishop Arseniy was freed from pretrial detention after a year and ten months behind bars.
Phanar hierarch: Kyiv Lavra is transformed into a center of sad conflicts
Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon stated that ecclesiastical freedom "many times emerges through blood itself."
National Memory Institute: Lavra is sacred center for Catholics and Protestants
The head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, Oleksandr Alferov, said the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is a shared shrine for Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Christians.
Dumenko calls reopening of Near Caves a step toward victory over Russia
The head of the OCU commented on the reopening of the Lavra’s Near Caves, which the authorities shut down back in August 2023 without explaining why.
TRC staff abducts rector of UOC’s Alexander Nevsky Church in the capital
In Kyiv, the TRC detained Archpriest Yaroslav Kruhlenko.
In Podgorica, multi-thousand procession held on city's patron saint day
Thousands of believers walked in a procession through the capital of Montenegro, honoring the memory of Saint Simeon the Myrrh-Streaming.