‘We don’t want people to know’: Easter service in Kyiv focuses on Moscow | Ukraine

As Ukraine celebrated the peak of the Orthodox year, the capital’s Pechersk Lavra – a monastic complex loyal to the Moscow Patriarch – held an Easter service amid unusually tense circumstances.

Normally, the night before Easter Sunday, the streets of Ukraine were crammed with Orthodox believers going to church. Easter services in the Orthodox world begin the night before and end at dawn on Sunday – symbolizing Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

But in wartime Ukraine, every city is subject to strict curfews, usually beginning late evening and lasting until early morning.

To allow Easter celebrations, some Kiev churches, including the Unesco-protected Pechersk Lavra, have been given permission to hold lock-ins. Instead of coming and going as they please, the faithful had to stay inside the historic wall complex from 11 p.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Sunday.

Pechersk Lavra remained linked to the Moscow Patriarch after an independence vote in 2018. Photo: Ed Ram/The Guardian

For over 400 years, the only Orthodox Church in Ukraine recognized by Constantinople was the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was allied to the Moscow Patriarch. But in 2018, after decades of struggle, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, considered the leading authority for the world’s 300 million Orthodox believers, granted Ukraine the right to an independent church.

Hundreds of Ukrainian congregations voted for the change, although thousands more stayed with the Moscow Patriarch. Important historical sites in Ukraine, the birthplace of Eastern European Orthodoxy, are now controlled by priests of various affiliations.

The Pechersk Lavra is one that remained with the Moscow Patriarch (the 1,000-year-old St. Sophia Cathedral is controlled by the Kiev Patriarch), and until recently, Ukrainian intelligence services viewed their religious leaders as Kremlin agents for their Moscow connections. The clerics now claim they are independent of Moscow and have spoken out against “Russia’s war on Ukraine,” earning the support of advisers to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

At the invitation of one of Pechersk Lavra’s senior priests, the guardian was let into the hand-painted interior of the 18th-century Trapezniy Church – one of the 12 churches of the monastery, which sits on the riverbank of Kyiv – for his nightly service.

Due to the curfew during the war, believers had to stay in the Trapezniy Church for six hours. Photo: Ed Ram/The Guardian

In the main part of the church, believers reserved their seats around the altar for a long night. At the other end of the church, a line of believers had formed for confession, which in Orthodoxy is accomplished by kissing an icon, with a priest standing over the believer and covering the believer’s head with his stole. For those who were unable to attend, the service was broadcast live.

But less than an hour later, the priests stopped chanting at the altar to issue an unscheduled notice: “It is forbidden to take photographs, would the person taking photographs please stop now.” Rev. Metropolitan Pavel, who led the Easter service and who the Ukrainian authorities are investigating for inciting religious hatred said we had to go.

“You have to understand that [Ukrainian] The Ministry of Culture doesn’t like it when there are a lot of people here,” said an assistant cleric. “We don’t want them to close the lavra.”

The clerics of the Pechersk Lavra now say they are independent from Moscow and have opposed “Russia’s war on Ukraine.” Photo: Ed Ram/The Guardian

The official live transmission was allowed because the church’s video cameras were set up in such a way that the number of believers was obscured, the assistant explained.

“We don’t want anyone to know [how many came],” he said. He showed live broadcast of a lock-in service held by the “Others” at Kyiv’s independent Ukrainian Mykhailivsky Cathedral, noting that fewer people were in attendance.

“Nobody wants to be photographed,” said a second assistant, who lamented the hundreds of journalists who attended Easter services before the war.

The first assistant said the Culture Ministry had limited the number of worshipers who could take part in the lockdown and that even by holding the services they would be breaking the law – although a priest at Mykhailivsky Cathedral the Guardian spoke to , said that there were no such restrictions.

“We live in a right state,” said the first responder. “The president supports us, but there are people who want to take the lavra away from us – physically take it away.”

The service was broadcast live, although clergymen preferred an opaque display of the number of worshipers in attendance. Photo: Ed Ram/The Guardian

When asked who he was referring to, he named Ukraine’s far-right Right Sector Battalion, formed in 2014 to fight Russian-backed separatists. Since then, Kremlin propaganda has exaggerated the group’s power and popularity in Ukraine, repeatedly accusing Ukrainians coming against Moscow of being members of the Right Sector. “This war is a mistake,” said the assistant.

Vladimir Putin has cited Moscow’s historic dominance of churches in Ukraine as the main argument for Russia’s right to control the country and was angered when Kyiv was granted independence. Since the full-scale invasion of Russia, Moscow Patriarch Kirill has portrayed it as a holy war and has been a vocal supporter of the work of Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

But during a service on Easter Saturday, Patriarch Kirill was far more reserved. He seemed to have abandoned his pro-violence stance and called for an end to the conflict – although he did not criticize it.

The Metropolitans’ assistants said it was not for them to comment on Patriarch Kirill’s position. “We have helped many refugees – accommodated them in our dormitory in the Lavra. Ten of our priests are traveling to Mariupol to oversee funerals,” one said.

“Metropolitan Onufriy [the head representative in Kyiv of the Moscow Patriarch Church in Ukraine] called it Russian aggression, but some people in the authorities put us in a box.”