American media about Lavra: Our taxes fund religious repression

Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Photo: news.obozrevatel.net

The American Conservative magazine wrote about the situation created by the Ukrainian authorities around the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

American journalists note that the Lavra, which was handed over to the UOC in 1989 in an emergency condition, today is a large and thriving monastery complex of renovated churches and premises, which the government wants to take away from the Church now.

“The Zelensky government says that Orthodox Ukrainians are still free to worship with the smaller, breakaway church, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. This rings hollow. The OCU was set up during the Poroshenko years as a nationalist scheme by thoroughly uncanonical means that are still not recognized by many other Orthodox churches (including the Orthodox Church of America, which continues to pray for the UOC),” the article says.

The report notes that the Zelensky government is funded by America, which means that US citizens have their say in terms of what their taxes should be spent on.

“Unless we act now and ensure our tax dollars are not used to pay for religious persecution, next week Kiev will be filled with videos of loyal Ukrainians being arrested, or worse, simply for wanting the right to pray according to their consciences. What better propaganda videos for Putin will there be than that?” the journalists ask a rhetorical question.

Let us recall that His Beatitude discussed the situation around the Lavra with the senior advisor for religious affairs of the US Institute of Peace.

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