UOC responds to suggestion to mark museum's anniversary at Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra

"Monks are the bloody enemies of the working people" (a banner on the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv-Pechersk Monastery, 1930s). Photo: wikipedia.org

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church responded to the call by the director of the National Reserve "Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra" Maksym Ostapenko to solemnly mark the 100th anniversary of the Soviet decree turning the monastery into a museum. The UOC Information and Educational Department commented on the official's statement in an interview on Radio Kultura (Culture) on September 24, 2026.

The Information Department noted that the head of the Reserve had not once mentioned the fate of the hundreds of Lavra monks who were subjected to repression, while the announced celebrations caused bewilderment among believers and patriotically minded citizens. The date being proposed for official commemoration is, in essence, the anniversary of one of the darkest chapters in the monastery’s history – the beginning of the Bolsheviks’ destruction of the monastery and their anti-religious persecution.

The historical basis for the current "anniversary" is the decree of the VUTsVK (All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee) of September 29, 1926, by which the territory of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra was declared the "All-Ukrainian Museum Town." In church memory, the events of the 1920s are associated primarily not with "museification" as an act of cultural preservation, but with the gradual curtailment of monastic life by the Soviet authorities.

The final closure of the monastery occurred at the beginning of 1930: the brotherhood was evicted, liturgical life was terminated, and some of the Caves monks were subsequently subjected to arrests, imprisonment, exile, and executions. At the same time, the Soviet authorities confiscated church valuables: even before the creation of the museum town, in 1919–1922, the monastery's precious icon covers and a significant amount of church plate were seized from the Lavra.

As the UOJ reported, Ostapenko stated that without the Soviet reserve, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra would not have existed. The UOC emphasizes that the emergence of the museum institution is directly linked to the actions of the Soviet authorities, who consistently deprived the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra of its primary purpose – to be a functioning Orthodox monastery.

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