MOSCOW, March 24. /TASS/. Clergy of the canonic Ukrainian Orthodox Church have started to leave the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Ukraine’s Culture and Information Policy Minister Alexander Tkachenko said in a live broadcast on national television on Thursday night.

"The process UOC’s withdrawal from the [Kiev-Pechersk] Lavra is now under way," he said. "The process has begun."

According to the minister, police and security officers are inspecting the departing monks and their luggage.

"If a state commission finds that something is missing in the Lavra, the UOC clergy will be prosecuted by law," Tkachenko added.

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.