Kiev, May 30, 2018
The monastery has been a constantly targeted by schismatics and nationalists lately.
Photo: spzh.news The first session against the ancient Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos-Tithes Monastery in Kiev was heard yesterday in the city’s District Administrative Court, The Union of Orthodox Journalists reports.
The suit was brought by People’s Deputy Igor Lutsenko against the state registrar for the registration of three small architectural real estate objects of the religious community of the Tithes Church, which belongs to the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church which maintains communion with the Russian Orthodox Church and the entire Orthodox world.
Ukrainian schismatics, nationalist, and pagans have repeatedly attacked the church lately, claiming it was illegally built on the grounds of the Ukrainian National History Museum. The monastery, on the other hand, maintains that it has and can produce all the necessary legal paperwork.
The third parties in the case are the religious community, the museum, and the Ministry of Culture, to which the museum is subordinate.
At the first session, the court Lutsenko’s case with the previously-registered case brought by the museum against the state registrar. The next session is scheduled for June 19.
There was an attempted arson against the Tithes Monastery on the morning of January 25, and later the same day, radical nationalists of the C-14 terrorist organization committed vandalism against the monastery. The two men who set fire at the monastery were sentenced to either two months’ imprisonment or a fine of 2.2 million hryvnia ($77,000). The judge who sentenced them has since received threats against herself and her family. The men were later released on bail.
Since the attacks, a local pagan group has also started a petition calling for the destruction of the Tithes Monastery. The monastery is located just a few meters from where an ancient pagan temple once stood.
However, thousands have come out to protect the church at various times, and more than 20,000 signatures have been collected for a petition in support of the monastery.
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The original Church of the Tithes was built between 989 and 996 by order of St. Vladimir the Great, so named because the Grand Prince had set aside a tithe of his income and property to finance the church’s construction and maintenance. The church was destroyed by Mongols in 1240, rebuilt in the mid-nineteenth century, and again destroyed in 1928 by the godless Soviets. A temporary structure was set up in 2006 to celebrate Pascha on the site, in 2007 a wooden church was built on the same site, and on July 9, 2009, the Holy Synod decided to open the Nativity of the Mother of God Monastery of the Tithes.
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