SBU intelligence service states the raid was to examine suspicions of Russia utilizing the complex for sabotage and to keep weapons.
Published On 23 Nov 2022
Ukraine’s security service and cops have actually robbed a 1,000- year-old Orthodox Christian abbey in Kyiv to counter thought “subversive activities by Russian unique services”.
The vast Kyiv Pechersk Lavra complex– or Kyiv Monastery of the Caves– is a Ukrainian cultural treasure and its cathedral, churches and other structures are a UNESCO-listed World Heritage website.
Overlooking the best bank of the Dnieper River, it is likewise the head office of the Russian-backed wing of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and falls under the Moscow Patriarchate.
The Ukrainian counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism service stated the search became part of its “organized work to counter the subversive activities of the Russian unique services in Ukraine”.
The declaration from the intelligence service, referred to as the SBU for its initials in Ukrainian, stated the operation was targeted at avoiding making use of the abbey as “the centre of the Russian world” and performed to check out suspicions “about making use of the facilities … for safeguarding sabotage and reconnaissance groups, foreign people, [and] weapons storage”. It stated another website was likewise being browsed in the Rivne area, 240 kilometres (150 miles) west of the capital.
The “Russian world” idea is at the centre of President Vladimir Putin’s brand-new diplomacy teaching, which intends to safeguard Russia’s language, culture and religious beliefs. It has actually been utilized by conservative ideologues to validate intervention abroad.
The SBU did not elaborate on the result of the operation.
War deepens split
In Russia, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov implicated Ukrainian authorities of “waging a war on the Russian Orthodox Church”.
He explained the search “as another link in the chain of these aggressive actions versus Russian Orthodoxy”.
Moscow-based church authorities have actually consistently voiced assistance for the Kremlin’s intrusion of Ukraine. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who heads the Russian Orthodox Church, has actually explained the war as a “esoteric battle” in between Moscow and the West. He condemned Tuesday’s search as “an act of intimidation”.
The raid will even more strain currently tense relations in between Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians.
” Like lots of other cases of persecution of followers in Ukraine considering that 2014, this act of intimidation of followers is nearly specific to go undetected by those who call themselves the global human rights neighborhood,” stated Vladimir Legoyda, a representative for the Russian Orthodox Church.
The SBU operation follows a November 12 service at the Pechersk Lavra complex where a Ukrainian Orthodox priest was shot discussing the “awakening” of Russia.
The SBU stated it was “checking out the information of the occurrence that took place in among the temples of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra– where tunes applauding the ‘Russian world’ were sung”.
Last Friday, the SBU stated it had actually charged a senior clergyman from the western Vinnytsia area with trying to disperse brochures validating Russia’s February 24 intrusion of Ukraine.
In May, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate ended its ties with the Russian Church over the latter’s assistance for what Moscow calls a “unique military operation”.
Ukraine states the full-blown intrusion was an unprovoked war of aggressiveness.
A 2020 study by the Kyiv-based Razumkov Centre discovered that 34 percent of Ukrainians determined as members of the primary Orthodox Church of Ukraine, while 14 percent were members of Ukraine’s Moscow Patriarchate Church.
In 2019, Ukraine was permitted by the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians worldwide to form a church independent of Moscow, mostly ending centuries of spiritual ties in between the 2 nations.