Court orders investigation into state employee’s comments about “cleansing” Kiev Caves Lavra

Kiev, June 5, 2025

The acting head of the state’s Kiev Caves Lavra Museum and Preserve discussed the “cleansing” of the Lavra with the head of the schismatic OCU The acting head of the state’s Kiev Caves Lavra Museum and Preserve discussed the “cleansing” of the Lavra with the head of the schismatic OCU     

A Kiev court has ordered the local police to investigate the acting head of the state’s Kiev Caves Lavra Museum and Preserve, who spoke of “cleansing” the sacred monastery of the Orthodox monks who live there.

The Kiev Caves Lavra has been state-owned since Soviet times, run by the Museum, which is under the Ministry of Culture. Svetlana Kotliarevska was recently appointed acting head of the Museum, specifically to wage a more intense war against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, whose monks live and worship in the Lower Lavra (having already been cut off from the churches of the Upper Lavra). The Church’s contract for usage of the Lower Lavra was terminated in March 2023, though their eviction was halted by a Kiev court in January of this year.

Soon after her appointment, Kotliarevska met with “Metropolitan” Epiphany, the head of the graceless “Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” to discuss cooperation towards “cleansing” the Lavra of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is recognized by the larger Orthodox world as the canonical Church in Ukraine. Epiphany “expressed confidence that the new leadership of the Preserve will work more actively within the framework of current legislation to completely free the Lavra.”

Representatives of the monastery filed a legal complaint, calling for an investigation into Kotliaerevska’s provocation and incitement of religious enmity during her meeting with the OCU head, and on Tuesday, June 3, a Kiev court ordered the Podolsk police department in Kiev to enter data on the commission of a criminal offense into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations, reports the monastery’s lawyer Archpriest Nikita Chekman.

Fr. Nikita notes that the court order specifically refers to the criminal offense of incitement of religious enmity committed by an official.

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6/5/2025

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