Metropolitan Anthony: The attempt to turn Lavra into a nature reserve is an attempt to "lock up" Orthodoxy

Metropolitan Antony (Pakanich), the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s (UOC) administrator of affairs, has strongly criticized attempts to turn the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra from a living spiritual monastery into a “reserve” and a museum. According to the hierarch, this is an effort to “carefully lock up” living Orthodoxy, pushing centuries-old prayer tradition into the realm of history, and also leads to the cynical eviction of monks from their homes and the installation of pagan idols on Kiev hills.

Metropolitan Anthony voiced his address to the faithful on the eve of the second Sunday of Lent, speaking about the deep meanings of the struggle for the main sanctuary of the Ukrainian land. He asked the question: “Has the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra ceased to be a living spiritual monastery? Is it possible that the place where prayer sounded for centuries, where saints moved, where millions of people found their way to God, now should be only an object of tourist sightseeing?”.

Metropolitan Anthony emphasized that St. Anthony, the founder of Lavra, came to the Kiev hills not to create an architectural monument, but to establish a monastery. “Changing the perception of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is not just a formal or technical change of name. It is much more than that. It is a principled approach to the way it is proposed to look at one of the main sanctuaries of our land today,” – said the head of the UOC. He explained that a monastery is a living organism, where the meeting of man with God and the transformation of life takes place, while a sanctuary is a place where church history is demonstrated “through the glass of a showcase” as “an outdated exhibit”.

The situation of the current brethren of the Lavra is of particular concern. Vladyka Antony noted that the monks are “cynically trying to be kicked out of their own home,” and to pray at the relics of the Monks in the caves they now have to seek permission from the administration of the reserve, among whose representatives there may be non-believers.

Metropolitan Anthony also commented on the critical statements of UGCC spokesmen who claim that Orthodoxy is supposedly “outdated.” He objected, asking the question: “If Orthodoxy is indeed ‘outdated’, how did it happen that it was it that for centuries formed the spiritual world of our people? How did it happen that it was from it that our culture, our moral tradition, our understanding of good and evil grew?”

The hierarch drew parallels with the times of the Venerable Nestor the Chronicler, who described the transition of Kiev from pagan darkness to the light of Christianity. “Sometimes one gets the impression that today this historical vector seems to be trying to turn back, ” the Metropolitan said, pointing to “strange things”: the taking away of temples from the true Church and the simultaneous restoration of Perun’s idols and pagan altars on Kiev’s hills.

At the end of his address Metropolitan Anthony called not only to remember the history of Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, but also to remember that this history is not just a set of pages from the past, but a fundamental spiritual foundation on which the life of the Ukrainian people was built for centuries.

Earlier we reported that the National Reserve “Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra” has “rebranded” the names of the saints, whose incorruptible relics rest in the caves of the Holy Assumption Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. The plaques with the names of the saints, which were previously written in Church Slavonic, have been translated into Ukrainian.