Lavra's "Life-Giving Spring": hundreds under the UOC, none under the OCU

A "service" of the OCU in the Lavra church taken from the UOC. Photo: OCU

On September 23, at the Lavra Church "Life-Giving Spring," the OCU held its "service" for the new-style Nativity of John the Baptist, attended by only 3 (!) parishioners besides Dumenko's clerics.

This church had been completely rebuilt in the 1990s by the monks and faithful of the UOC. For nearly thirty years, a strong, vibrant community flourished there. But in 2023, when the authorities tightened their grip on the Lavra, police first restricted the number of parishioners allowed at services, and a year later drove them out entirely, handing the temple over to the OCU.

Now the “Life-Giving Spring” stands deserted. The OCU’s makeshift “brotherhood” of about ten men tours around multiple Lavra churches, and when their turn finally comes to this one, there are no faithful – which is only natural.

By contrast, footage from the temple feast of the UOC in 2023 shows hundreds of believers. Those who could not fit inside were driven outside the Lavra gates by the police and stood pressed against the fence. Since then, all of them have been forced to scatter to other parishes in Kyiv.

No one has taken their place. The church is empty.

Any government is chosen by the people, and it is obliged to act in their interests. What is the interest of Ukrainians who have been deprived of their shrine?

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