Car taking away icon from Kyiv monastery is stopped by police
The police have stopped a car that was removing an icon from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra (Monastery of the Caves).
Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Details: A Radio Liberty journalist witnessed the police refusing to let the car pass, as it was carrying an icon from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.
Поліція не пропустила автомобіль, в якому перевозили ікону з Києво-Печерської лаври. pic.twitter.com/7M0rrH1IHN
— Українська правда ✌️ (@ukrpravda_news) March 30, 2023
According to the journalist, when the police find such items in cars, a representative of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy or the National Reserve evaluates the item and decides whether it is allowed to leave or not.
This time, permission was granted, but the police nevertheless sent the car back to the territory of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.
Background:
- In March 2023, the National Reserve Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra terminated the agreement with the UOC-MP on the free use of the monastery in Kyiv. The monks were supposed to leave the monastery and all its buildings on 29 March.
- The priests of the UOC-MP should have left the monastery on 29 March after holding their last service there.
- But the Lavra’s abbot, Metropolitan Pavlo, said he did not intend to do that and filed a lawsuit against the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve.
- He also openly threatened Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and said Minister of Culture and Information Policy Oleksandr Tkachenko was "possessed by an unclean spirit".
- On the evening of 29 March, the UOC-MP website reported that the Kyiv Commercial Court had opened proceedings in a case brought by the Holy Dormition Monastery against the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve over the termination of the lease agreement by the National Reserve.
- Oleksii Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, gave assurances that UOC-MP clergy would not be evicted from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra by force.
- On 30 March, the Ministry of Culture commission which was to have carried out an inventory of the property of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve was refused entry to the Lavra by UOC-MP parishioners.
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