Athonite monks at Dumenko’s Lavra “service”

Dumenko embraces Archimandrite Bartholomew. Photo: OCU

On July 9 and 10, the Dormition Cathedral hosted a parody of celebrations marking the 975th anniversary of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

The spectacle featured Serhii Dumenko and his clergy, several Athonite monks, and a Greek choir.

Why call it a parody?

Because none of those gathered had anything to do with the Lavra.

Politicians and their armed security guards – inside a church, no less – bused-in “parishioners,” Dumenko himself, and his associates are all people who never set foot in the monastery on an ordinary day.

What we witnessed was a carefully staged media stunt designed to create the illusion that the OCU is the Lavra’s rightful owner.

Unfortunately, several Athonite monks, led by Archimandrite Bartholomew, abbot of the New Esphigmenou Monastery, played a central role in this performance.

Only a few years ago, he came to Kyiv to meet Metropolitan Onuphry and serve alongside the clergy of the UOC.

Today, together with the Byzantine choir, he was cast as one of the event’s principal legitimizing figures.

After all, Athonite monks themselves had come to take part in the service. What stronger seal of approval could there be?

OCU benefactors also paid for the visit of a magnificent Byzantine choir led by the Archon Protopsaltis of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

The organizers chose these guests for a reason.

In the eleventh century, St. Anthony of the Caves lived as an ascetic on Mount Athos precisely at Esphigmenou Monastery.

True, the monks who arrived in Kyiv do not represent the “real” Esphigmenou, but only its small splinter counterpart. The “old” Esphigmenou refused to submit to Patriarch Bartholomew.

Nevertheless, a convenient narrative of “continuity” was constructed, with the visiting Athonites presented as spiritual “brothers” of St. Anthony.

Archimandrite Bartholomew delivered a lengthy speech in which Dumenko and the OCU were portrayed in grandiose terms as the Lavra’s lawful owners and the true successors of the Venerable Fathers of the Caves.

“The creation of an independent Church of Ukraine is not a political act. It is not merely an administrative change. It is a profound spiritual movement, a return to the truth, a reunion with one’s own soul. A Church searching for itself turns to the place where everything began – to Kyiv, where the light of faith was kindled, to St. Anthony,” the archimandrite declared.

He also called on the people of Ukraine to “rally around the Lavra and support the fathers and the Church itself.”

These words might sound profound and sincere – provided one knows nothing about what is actually happening to the Church and the Lavra.

But that is precisely the point.

Archimandrite Bartholomew knows perfectly well that the Lavra’s real community has been driven out, its churches closed, and the faithful denied access to the shrine.

He also knows that the creation of the OCU – a structure that does little but seize and appropriate – was precisely the political act he now denies.

That is why the Athonite abbot’s words amount to classic, cynical hypocrisy – the kind that leaves one feeling ashamed on his behalf.

Then came Dumenko’s speech, predictably read from a sheet of paper.

It was evidently written by his staff speechwriter, because it contained the same tired formulas he repeats in every public address: the “false teaching of the Russian world” that supposedly reigned in the Lavra under the UOC, Dumenko’s heroic “liberation” of the monastery, and his mission to “return” it to the true service of God.

The speech culminated in the claim that under the UOC, the faithful in the Lavra were spiritually perishing – until the great ascetic Epiphany arrived and led them “to salvation.”

There is only one problem.

Tomorrow, the shrine will be empty again.

The “parishioners” will be driven home.

The Athonites will return to the Holy Mountain.

The Byzantine choir will leave for Istanbul.

And once again, there will be no one left in the Lavra for Dumenko to “lead to salvation.”

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