Kiev, February 18, 2026
A man is drilling through the door of one of the Lavra churches. Photo: Fr. Nikita Chekman
Ukrainian authorities continue to work to completely remove Orthodoxy from the holiest site in all of Ukraine—the Kiev Caves Lavra.
On Tuesday, staff from the state-fun Kiev Caves Lavra National Historical Preserve cut the locks on two more churches in the Lower Lavra—the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and the Church of the Venerable Fathers of the Caves (also known as the Warm Church—blocking the monastery’s brotherhood from access to the last remaining churches where they had still been able to hold services, reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists.
This was reported by the Lavra’s legal representative, Archpriest Nikita Chekman, who published several videos of men cutting their way into the churches.
The locks were cut on the same day that a court hearing was being held regarding the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s access to churches in the Upper Lavra.
According to the Union of Orthodox Journalists’s sources, the Ministry of Culture intends to hand over all the Lavra’s churches to the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU) before the start of Great Lent — with the sole exception of the St. Agapit Church, which actually sits outside the monastery walls. Access to the holy sites is to be given to six OCU “monks” who are employed by the Ministry of Culture.
The action is the latest in a series of steps that have steadily narrowed the UOC’s presence at the ancient monastery. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church was already removed from the Upper Lavra in 2023, which contains the site’s main cathedrals. Those have since been handed to the OCU for occasional use and have also hosted rock concerts, art exhibitions, and other secular events.
The Kiev Theological Schools, which were located in the Lower Lavra, have likewise been expelled. On February 2, 2026, the Ministry of Culture announced the transfer of two more buildings in the Lower Lavra to the OCU—Building 70, which housed the residence of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine, and Building 49, which housed the chancellery of the Kiev Metropolitanate of the UOC.
The Lavra has been under state control since Soviet times, with the territory divided between the Upper and Lower Lavra sections. The current actions would effectively complete the removal of the UOC brotherhood from the monastery, leaving it in the hands of a small number of OCU-affiliated “monastics.”
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