MOSCOW, April 7. /TASS/. Ukrainian authorities plan to start evicting the monks of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra after the court ruling on the lawsuit filed by the Culture Ministry against the UOC, Ukrainian Culture and Information Policy Minister Alexander Tkachenko said on Friday.
"We have filed a lawsuit with Kiev’s Commercial Court in regard to the obstruction of state property, which is the reserve (the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Historical and Cultural Reserve, which is under the jurisdiction of the Culture Ministry - TASS). We have to receive the court’s ruling and then we will take action in accordance with the law," said the Ukrainian minister, who earlier hoped that the claim would be expedited.
The situation around the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra escalated to the boiling point after the monks of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church had refused to leave the monastery following the order of the directorate of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Historical and Cultural Reserve. On March 10, the reserve’s directorate announced the termination of the open-ended lease agreement with the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and ordered the monks to vacate the premises by March 29. Metropolitan Pavel, abbot of the monastery, described these actions as illegal and said that the monks had refused to leave the monastery.
In the morning of March 29, the reserve’s directorate warned that the UOC’s priests and monks would have to leave the monastery by 11:59 p.m. The clergy of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra filed a lawsuit with a Ukrainian court to challenge their right to the monastery.
On March 30, a commission of the Ukrainian Culture Ministry arrived at the Lavra to take inventory of the property but was not let in. On March 31, Ukraine’s Culture and Information Policy Ministry filed a lawsuit with Kiev’s Commercial Court against the canonical UOC for obstructing the management of the state property in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Tkachenko later said that following the ruling, bailiffs would be involved in the monks’ eviction.