Kiev, May 20, 2024
Photo: news.church.ua
Orthodox clergy and laity from various dioceses of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church offered prayers and held a procession on Friday at the former site of the Sts. Vladimir and Olga Church of the Tithes Monastery in Kiev, which was demolished under cover of darkness early that morning.
The anti-Orthodox element in Ukraine had been trying to dismantle the church since at least 2018, during the time of President Petro Poroshenko, arguing that it was illegally built on the territory of the National History Museum. And early Friday morning, the church was bulldozed and carried away by dump truck.
The ancient cathedral that once stood on the same spot was blown up by the godless authorities in 1936.
Believers laid flowers on the site of the destroyed altar and lit lampadas and candles as it turned dark. Together, the clergy and laity sang Paschal hymns and held a procession around the site where the church once stood, reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists.
Tithes Monastery abbot Bishop Clement assured the faithful that the prayer life in the monastery will not stop.
He also emphasized that they managed to save the monastery’s wonderworking icon of the Theotokos before the church was destroyed.
The primate of the UOC, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, expressed his support for the brethren of the monastery, saying:
In this tragic time, I pray for those people: Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Lk. 23:34). And to the brethren of the holy monastery, I wish that the Lord grants them a new church, bigger and better than the one destroyed by evil people, so that they may continue their sincere prayers in the temple of God’s glory for our Ukrainian land and people, and for the whole world.
Meanwhile, the Legal Department of the UOC has appealed to multiple Ukrainian state bodies regarding the illegality of the church’s destruction.
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