MOSCOW, March 10. /TASS/. The canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church can’t comply with the order for the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra to leave its premises because it believes the order is illegal, Kliment, the chairman of the synodic information department at the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, said on Friday.
He was responding to the order where Kiev-Pechersk Lavra director general told monks to leave the historic monastery by March 29 due to the termination of the lease agreement.
"The leadership of the museum sent out an ultimatum where it announced the termination of the lease agreement, providing no explanation, and demanded that the monastery be vacated. These demands aren’t in line with Ukrainian legislation. UOC can’t be evicted from the monastery because there’ s no legal grounds for it," Metropolitan Kliment said, the Ukrainian news outlet Strana reported.
"It’s not clear on what grounds we should transfer those material values and the cultural heritage that was restored and preserved by the monks. On what grounds should this be transferred to the people who have nothing to do with it?" the cleric said. "They didn’t create it, did not reconstruct it, but only destroyed it all previous years and now they want to take it away from us."