TBILISI, March 28. /TASS/. Several dozen people are holding a rally near the Ukrainian embassy in Tbilisi on Tuesday against the decision of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra reserve management’s decision to evict the monks of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), a TASS correspondent reports from the scene.

"We found it necessary, on behalf of Georgia’s Orthodox society, to respond to blasphemous activities by the Ukrainian authorities, who have addressed the monks with an ultimatum to leave the monastery within 10 days. It has turned out that the Ukrainian government thinks that this cultural heritage is its property and that it is free to decide who will serve there," one of the organizers of the rally, head of Tbilisi’s Ye. M. Primakov Georgian-Russian Public Center, Dmitry Lortkipanidze, told TASS.

Among the participants in the demonstration are both ordinary citizens and clergymen. They have unfurled a banner reading "The government of Ukraine, stop persecuting the true church!" Some demonstrators are holding icons. At the same time, the day before, the Georgian Patriarchate called on the clergy to refrain from protests and stated that it had nothing to do with the demonstration. The rally is peaceful. A prayer service is being conducted.

Lately, the authorities of Ukraine have set course towards banning the UOC. The Security Service of Ukraine SBU has been searching churches and dioceses throughout the country, charging priests with treason and taking sanctions against hierarchs. On March 10, the management of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra reserve, which is under the jurisdiction of Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture, announced the termination of the open-ended lease contract with the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra of the UOC and told the monks of the canonical church to leave the monastery by March 29.

Earlier, the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II sent a letter to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, in which he called on him to help ease tensions in the religious dispute in Ukraine and create conditions for peaceful coexistence at the first stage, and subsequently to take a peaceful step towards mutual rapprochement.