.jpg?width=1024 "Police checks at the Monastery of the Caves in Kyiv")
Police check Kiev Pechersk Lavra – Portal
There is a video that went viral in Ukraine and caused a scandal. There it appears Hieromonk Zachary, a priest at the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra in the heart of the capital, blesses a group of women as a song about the spiritual rebirth of Holy Russia is sung. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church priest, affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate, has been accused by the SBU, Ukraine’s secret service subversive activities and support for the Russian invasion. Based on this footage, carpet searches of Moscow Church places of worship and investigations into leaders of the Orthodox hierarchy across the country began in early November.
“Counterintelligence” operations that say the country’s largest church community has fallen into the crosshairs of state authorities led to the yesterday Decree signed by President Zelenskyy on «Guarantee of spiritual independence of Ukraine». The text starts thea process that should lead to the banning of every church associated with Russia, beginning with the Orthodox in Moscow. Within two months, the National Security and Defense Council will submit a bill to parliament banning religious organizations “affiliated with centers of influence in the Russian Federation.” Then they are predicted sanctions against the clergy on which the secret services rely to intensify controls. And after the indecent video, they are asked to verify the “legitimacy of the presence” of the Church of Moscow in the Kyiv Caves Monastery, owned by the state: in fact, a hypothesis of eviction.
A “worrying” signal on the thorny issue of religious freedom, some members of the country’s churches and religious communities are sounding the alarm who had already denounced criticism of the Orthodox Church by the rulers of various regions. Distancing herself is Elena Bogdan, head of the State Service for Freedom of Conscience (an institution that Zelenskyy is reforming and entrusted to the government), who warned that a freeze on confessions would result in “a destabilization of society” and the Orthodox Church ” “With the statutes passed in May, we no longer show any ties to Russia”. The reference relates to the distancing initiated after the war began, as well as the decision not to mention the Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill, who had blessed the attack during the liturgies. And he adds: “In the Ukrainian Orthodox Church there are about 10,000 priests. If we look at the percentage of ongoing criminal cases, we are talking about less than 1%».
The Russian reaction continues. «The Satanists of Kyiv have reached the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church – says Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev -. They are looking for connections to the Russian world. They confiscate church property. They beat clergy and parishioners. The Ukrainian authorities have become open enemies of Christ and the Orthodox faith.” “No actor dependent on the aggressor state should be able to manipulate the Ukrainians and weaken the nation from within,” Zelenskyy comments.
And with this tool they were triggered the 007 raids against “pro-Russian propaganda” around the altar. In the dioceses of Chernivtsi and Bukovyna The leaders of the Orthodox Church are on trial as collaborators for holding Russian passports and “misinforming the faithful.” TO Ivano-Frankivsk the Cathedral of the Nativity was searched; in Ternopol Oblast the Pochaiv seminary was attacked; in the region of Rivne Agents raided the Trinity Monastery in Korets. Investigations into “incitement to hostility to religion” il Metropolitan Jonathan of Tulchyn. And accused of «spreading pro-Kremlin views» Metropolitan Joasaphformerly at the head of the Kirovograd diocese and appointed vicar of Kyiv on November 23: According to the SBU, the bishop “followed the instructions of Moscow to justify Russian aggression” and the investigations uncovered “books about the schism Ukrainian, a book on the history of the Kremlin” and “a photo with Patriarch Kirill”.