Ukraine raids historic monastery over suspected Russian links

Ukraine's Security Service inspects vehicles near Kyiv

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Ukraine’s security service and police raided a thousand-year-old Orthodox Christian monastery in Kyiv this morning suspecting “subversive activities by Russian special services”. Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, which is also known as the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves, is the headquarters of the Russian-backed wing of the Ukrainian Orthodox church, which falls under the Moscow patriarchate.

The head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Krill, has strongly supported Russia’s military actions in Ukraine.

The church condemned the raid as an “act of intimidation”.

In a statement the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said: “These measures are being taken … as part of the systemic work of the SBU to counter the destructive activities of Russian special services in Ukraine.”

It said the aim of the search was to prevent the use of the cave monastery as “the centre of the Russian world” and carried out to look into suspicions “about the use of the premises … for sheltering sabotage and reconnaissance groups, foreign citizens, weapons storage”.

The Guardian reports that the “Russian world” concept is at the centre of Vladimir Putin’s new foreign policy doctrine that aims to protect Russia’s language, culture and religion. It has been used by conservative ideologues to justify intervention abroad.

The SBU did not disclose any details about the outcome of today’s raid.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the SBU said it also raided two other monasteries and the headquarters of the Moscow patriarchate’s diocese in western Ukraine today.

The raid will heighten the already tense relations between Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians.

Vladimir Legoida, a spokesperson for the Russian Orthodox church, said: “Like many other cases of persecution of believers in Ukraine since 2014, this act of intimidation of believers is almost certain to go unnoticed by those who call themselves the international human rights community.”

The raid comes just days after the SBU said it had charged a senior clergyman from the western Vinnytsia region with attempting to distribute leaflets justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In May, the Ukrainian Orthodox church of the Moscow patriarchate ended its ties with the Russian church over the latter’s support for what Moscow calls its “special military operation”.

Ukraine says the full-scale invasion began an unprovoked war of aggression.

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In 2020 the Kyiv-based Razumkov Centre carried out a survey and found that 34 percent of Ukrainians identified as members of the main Orthodox church of Ukraine, while 14 percent were members of Ukraine’s Moscow patriarchate church.

Ukraine was given permission by the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians worldwide to form a church independent of Moscow in 2019.

This largely ended centuries of religious ties between the two countries.

 

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