Want a 'Ukrainian Vatican'? Give the Lavra back to the Church and go home
If one follows Ostapenko's logic literally, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra should become the same kind of state within Ukraine as the Vatican is for Italy.
The director of the nature reserve, Maksym Ostapenko, told Ukrainian diplomats that the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra should become a "Ukrainian Vatican". Let us examine what this means.
Let us begin with the Vatican. It is not a museum complex or a tourist brand. It is a sovereign state whose leader is not a popularly elected president, but the head of the Catholic Church — the Roman Pope. In other words, the state of the Vatican is governed by a church leader, and all the country's property belongs to the RCC.
Now, the Lavra. It was founded by the Venerable Anthony and Theodosius not as a museum, not as a concert hall or a centre for political conferences, but as a place of monastic endeavour. The caves were dug for seclusion and prayer. Everything built above ground over a thousand years — the churches, the buildings, the bell tower — was constructed around the liturgy. The "National Nature Reserve" here is a belch of the Soviet regime, the very same regime that established a museum in the Lavra in 1926.
If one follows Ostapenko's logic literally, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra should become the same kind of state within Ukraine as the Vatican is for Italy. And in that case, the Lavra should be governed not by the Ministry of Culture, not by the nature reserve administration, but by the Primate of the Church — in this instance, His Beatitude Onufriy. And if the Lavra is a "Ukrainian Vatican," then Ostapenko should pack his bags and, together with the other nature reserve staff, go home. And prayer will once again resound in the Lavra's churches.
The logic is simple and obvious. But our commissars of religion are people with special logical needs — much like their predecessors from the USSR.
