The Russian Orthodox Church expressed a strong protest against the expulsion from the walls of the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra by the Ukrainian authorities of the Kiev Theological Academy. This was announced in a statement published on area Department of External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The statement states that this was done with the approval of Patriarch Kirill. In it, the decision of the Ukrainian authorities to ban teachers and students of the Kiev Theological Academy from accessing educational buildings on the territory of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is called part of the state program of weakening and destruction, which was officially announced and approved in 2022. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is confiscating its monasteries and historical shrines, liquidating religious communities.
The statement states that with this unlawful decision, the Ukrainian government continues to systematically destroy the thousand-year-old Kiev-Pechersk Monastery and the spiritual, intellectual, cultural and historical traditions associated with it. It was tried to prevent the activities of a theological school with a history of more than four hundred years.
The PRC calls on international human rights organizations, the world Orthodox scientific and theological community, religious and secular educational institutions around the world to take possible steps to defend and support Eastern Europe’s oldest Orthodox educational institution.
It was previously reported by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine. closed access Teachers and students of the Kiev Theological Academy and the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Seminary equate them with the “visitors”.
Formerly officially the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine introduced the term “hostility”.