The head of the OCU announced the liberation of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra from the “shackles of the Russian World”

During the celebrations marking the 975th anniversary of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Epiphany Dumenko, head of the OCU, issued a statement regarding the return of the holy site to its “true origins.” The OCU leader expressed his gratitude to Ukraine’s leadership for their assistance in this process.

, in his speech addressed to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, government officials, and members of the Verkhovna Rada, Dumenko emphasized that the Pechersk tradition had been subject to distortions for many centuries. According to him, the Lavra had long been under the influence of the “Russian empire of evil,” which imposed the ideology of the “Russian World” through church institutions under its control. The head of the OCU expressed confidence that, thanks to the actions of the state authorities and the church, the monastery is successfully freeing itself from “servile submission to the conqueror.”

As part of the celebration, Serhiy Dumenko also noted the symbolic return of the image of Hetman Ivan Mazepa to the Lavra, which was met with approval by the audience. Concluding his remarks, he emphasized the significance of the monastery’s historical heritage for modern Ukrainian identity and ended his speech with patriotic slogans.

As a reminder, we previously reported that approximately 140 monks and novices of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church continue to reside on the grounds of the Lower Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, despite the termination of the agreement with the monastery. This was reported by Maksym Ostapenko, head of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve, who noted that the issue of the monastic community’s continued presence must be resolved through the courts.