MOSCOW, March 23. /TASS/. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, slammed Kiev’s plans to oust clerics from the Holy Dormition Pochaev Lavra on Thursday as the latest round in a religious war.
"This latest round of the Kiev regime’s religious war in Ukraine will, of course, lead to nothing good. It will have tragic consequences," the Russian diplomat warned.
According to Zakharova, Moscow has repeatedly highlighted the situation regarding churches in Ukraine. "We have been speaking about all of these trends on international platforms, and we sent out letters and submitted reports, spending a great deal of time explaining things, when it (the Church schism - TASS) could still have been prevented," she lamented.
Situation around Lavra
In January, a petition demanding the termination of the lease agreement between the Pochaev Lavra and the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church was published on the Ukrainian government website. Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and Metropolitan Epiphanius, primate of the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine, have already made clear their ambitions to wrest control of the Pochaev Lavra.
On March 10, an eviction notice from the acting director general of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Historical and Cultural Reserve (subordinate to the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture) was published on the monastery’s website, stating that monks affiliated with the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church must leave the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra by March 29, when the current lease expires.