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Ukrainian president highlights need to protect society from ‘manipulation of religion’

Vladimir Zelensky also described Ukraine as "the territory of the greatest religious freedom in our part of Europe"

MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/. The latest developments around the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra monastery in the Ukrainian capital indicate efforts to protect society from the manipulation of religion, the country’s President Vladimir Zelensky said.

"Today, a step has also been taken to strengthen the spiritual independence of our state," he said in a statement on Telegram, claiming that it was aimed at protecting Ukrainian society from the "Moscow manipulation of religion."

Zelensky also described Ukraine as "the territory of the greatest religious freedom in our part of Europe."

On March 10, the directorate of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra reserve terminated the open-ended lease with the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and ordered its monks to leave the monastery by March 29. The Lavra’s abbot, Metropolitan Pavel, slammed these actions as illegal and declared the monks’ refusal to leave. On Wednesday, the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine appointed its own "vicar" (assistant rector) of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.

The so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) was created in 2018 from two schismatic organizations, which later obtained autocephaly from Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. Neither the Russian Orthodox Church nor the Ukrainian Orthodox Church recognize the canonical status of this religious organization. After the creation of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, its supporters began to seize the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s church buildings by force.

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