“Today the first court hearing was held on the claim of the reservation to the monastery to remove the obstacles to the use of the property,” he wrote in his telegram.
At this meeting, according to the lawyer, they intended to accept the reservation’s refinement of the claims and consider securing the claim. But the court listened to the arguments of the representatives of the monastery and gave the opportunity to prepare written statements on this subject. The hearing adjourned at 10:30 a.m. on May 1.
Recall that a new round of the conflict around the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra began with a notification from the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine that it was unilaterally breaking the rental contract of the monastery. What followed was a surprising demand that the monks leave the monastery on March 29, although it was the monks of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church who raised the lavra from the Soviet ruins. And in itself, the disposition of the fate of the largest Orthodox monastery by an agency outside religion seemed shocking from both a legal and religious liberty perspective.
The Ukrainian government pursues a policy of humiliation and oppression of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The monks were told that they could stay at the monastery if they switched to the OCU schismatics.
Patriarch Kirill called such an order from the authorities “a monstrous act”.
Over the past year, Ukrainian authorities have staged the largest wave of persecution of the UOC in the country’s recent history.
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