For sacrilege in Lavra, higher powers may strike back – political analyst

Kostiantyn Bondarenko. Photo: a screenshot of the YouTube channel Alexander SHELEST

Political analyst Kostiantyn Bondarenko, in an interview with Alexander Shelest, commented on the shocking footage from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, where museum administration staff were seen tampering with the relics of the Venerable Fathers of the Caves.

Photos published online show an unknown man doing something inside an opened reliquary at the entrance to the Far Caves, while nearby liturgical vestments were hung out on a rope. According to eyewitnesses, these were the vestments in which the relics of the saints had been clothed.

“Today we witnessed a mind-boggling case. On the grounds of the closed Lavra, where there are neither parishioners nor brethren, representatives of the Ministry of Culture are literally poking around (I cannot find another word) in the reliquary, while the vestments of the saints have been strung up on a clothesline. They called this an ‘examination.’ In reality, it is sacrilege,” Alexander Shelest remarked.

Kostiantyn Bondarenko noted that such actions echo the practices of militant atheists in the 1920s, when the bodies of saints were pulled from their reliquaries in an attempt to prove they were nothing more than animal bones – a ploy to discredit the Church. He also drew parallels with the Spanish Civil War, when enemies of the Church desecrated monastic graves.

“There are universal human principles – you do not touch holy things. The state has no right to decide whether relics are sacred. That belongs to the Church. But when officials presume to sit in judgment over the relics, this is not mere politics – it is Bolshevism without Marx. And for such deeds, history shows, higher powers strike back. For this, a nation may be visited with calamity and misfortune,” the political analyst stressed.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that UOC lawyers had sent a request to the Ministry of Culture regarding the sacrilege committed against the relics of the Venerable Fathers of the Caves.

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