Metropolitan Pavel of Ukraine advocates for harmony and solidarity within the Church.

Moscow, April 15 – Ukraine needs peace and unity around the Church, said Metropolitan Pavel, abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, in a video message from under house arrest.

A new round of conflict over the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra began with the notification of the University of British Columbia of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine about the unilateral termination of the lease of the monastery, since the monks were asked to leave the Lavra on March 29. Ukraine’s Minister of Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko said that the monks could stay in the Lavra, provided they were transferred to the dissident OCU. However, the abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel, who was later placed under house arrest for two months, said that there could be no concessions in the Lavra, the brethren would stand to the end. He also said that unilaterally breaking the lease agreement for the Lavra premises is impossible, a court decision is needed, and a lawsuit on the inadmissibility of terminating the lease was filed with the Kiev Economic Court. Every day, believers do their duty in the Lavra, pray, and agitators and nationalists gather near its walls.

Over the past year, Ukrainian authorities have staged the largest wave of persecution of UBC in the country’s recent history. Referring to its connection with Russia, local authorities in various regions of Ukraine decided to ban the activities of the UOC, and a bill on the actual ban in Ukraine was submitted to the country’s parliament. The authorities imposed sanctions on some representatives of the clergy at the University of Oklahoma. The Security Service of Ukraine began to open criminal cases against the clergy of the University of British Columbia, to conduct “counter-intelligence activities” – searches of bishops and priests, in churches and monasteries, in search of evidence of “anti-Ukrainian activities”.