TSN: Only Ministry of Culture employees may be monks in the Lavra

TSN correspondent in the Lavra. Photo: Screenshot from TSN

In a segment aired by TSN on the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Caves, journalist Oleksandr Zahorodnyi stated that monks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) have only two options: “Either they join the OCU and remain near the relics, or they stay with the Moscow Patriarchate and must leave.”

“The OCU has, as people like to say nowadays, an ‘agreement’ with the Ministry of Culture and the [Lavra] Reserve, under which all monks of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine remain and are also employees of the Reserve. As Reserve staff, they are allowed to be in the caves and to pray there. Representatives of the Moscow Church, obviously, have no such agreement,” Zahorodnyi claimed.

He added that “there is still a possibility that, following an inspection, the Ministry of Culture might once again allow monks of the Moscow Patriarchate into the caves,” but he considers that unlikely.

The segment was published on the official YouTube channel of the OCU, suggesting that Dumenko’s structure confirms everything stated by the journalist –  specifically, that all "monks" of the OCU are employees of the Ministry of Culture.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that the "abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra" from the OCU is also an employee of the Reserve.

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