UNITED NATIONS, November 17. /TASS/. There are much more cases of the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) than the United Nations cites, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said on Friday.

"In January, you, Mrs. [Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ilze] Brands Kehris, said that you knew about three cases of the persecution of clergymen in Ukraine. The statistics you cited today differs from ours. Barely a year has passed when the number of such cases has exceeded two hundred," he said at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council called by Russia over the persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

"In the past 18 years alone, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) recorded ten cases of physical violence and six cases of threats as a result of the conflict between parishioners of various Orthodox Christian communities," Nebenzya said.

The situation around the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, one of the first monasteries of Rus and the oldest monastery in modern Ukraine, escalated in late March. The authorities unilaterally severed the lease agreement with the canonical church and demanded that the monks leave the monastery. The monks of the UOC refused to fulfill the illegal demands. Both sides appealed to the court.

Although the court has not pronounced its verdict yet, the Ukrainian authorities began to develop a strategy for the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra for 2023-2051. On July 1, the UOC received a letter from the Ministry of Culture demanding that the monks vacate five buildings of the Lavra by July 4. The UOC called such demands arbitrary. On July 4, the commission of the Ministry of Culture, created to seal the buildings, came to the Lavra, but the parishioners of the canonical church stood up to defend the premises.

The leadership of the commission turned to the police with a complaint against the parishioners of the UOC and left the territory. None of the five buildings was sealed. Then the museum-reserve Kiev-Pechersk Lavra starting from July 5 limited the time of access for parishioners to the UOC monastery located on its territory.