The Ukrainian state services for ethnopolitics and freedom of conscience has demanded that the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) break all ties with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) by August 18.
Drabinko spoke out against attempts to seize the Pochaev Lavra from the UOC, pointing to the problems within the OCU itself.
The Ukrainian military has started forcibly recruiting bishops and clergy of the canonical UOC, after passing a law the does not exempt them from military service and allows them to be sent to the front lines in the ranks of ordinary soldiers.
The organizers noted that over 30,000 people—by some media estimates 35,000—participated in the events held at various venues of the “Dostoevsky Days at Optina Monastery” festival.
Every year on July 16, the “Royal Days” (Царские дни) begins in the Ural city of Ekaterinburg, Russia—the place where Tsar Nicholas II, along with the rest of the royal family and several faithful servants, met their martyric death.