Amsterdam: Ukrainian government terminated UOC's right to use Kyiv Lavra

The Ukrainian government has taken away from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church the right to pray at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. International human rights lawyer Robert Amsterdam called this decision an open contempt for canonical Orthodoxy.

"The Ukrainian government has literally terminated the right of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to use the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra," stated Robert Amsterdam, "as it has done for nearly a thousand years." The lawyer emphasized that government officials accuse the UOC of ties with Russia contrary to the actual facts. According to the attorney, the Kyiv authorities are persecuting the UOC despite the fact that the Church has openly spoken out against the military invasion and declared its independence from Moscow.

The occasion for the human rights lawyer's statement was a post by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on the social network X. The Foreign Minister congratulated his compatriots on the 975th anniversary of the founding of the monastery, calling the ancient monastery a symbol of enduring statehood. The minister also announced the introduction of a new tradition of a joint ringing of the Lavra's bells. In Sybiha's view, this step connects the centuries-old history of the shrine with the country's contemporary movement toward the European community.

As the UOJ reported, Amsterdam stated that the authorities of Ukraine and Armenia are destroying the Church using Bolshevik methods.

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