Ministry of Culture plans to take inventory of relics of St. Job of Pochayiv

A special commission of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine and the Kremenets-Pochayiv Historical and Architectural Reserve planned an inventory of shrines and religious items in the Holy Dormition Pochayiv Lavra, which also includes the incorrupt relics of St. Job of Pochayiv. In total, the commission included 58 items and objects of movable and immovable property in the inventory list, which, according to the Pochayiv Monastery of the UOC, do not have the appropriate documents. The monastery is convinced that in this way the state is trying to carry out a hybrid expropriation of the monastery’s shrines. This was reported by the press secretary of the Pochayiv Lavra, Archimandrite Gabriel.

The Lavra’s spokesperson explained that the inventory planned by the reserve provides for the identification and description of all church utensils contained in the Assumption, Trinity Cathedrals and monastic cells. Archimandrite Gabriel drew attention to the fact that the church utensils that the workers of the “reserve” are trying to inventory were not transferred to the monastery by the state, and therefore such an inventory is illegal. In addition, the order of the State Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, according to which the “reserve” created a commission to inventory the complex of buildings of the Pochayiv Lavra, was issued with an obvious violation of competence. Based on the above, the monastery’s brethren object to the arbitrary and unlawful inventory of church utensils in the monastery’s possession.

In addition, the monastery drew attention to the blasphemous intentions of representatives of the Ministry of Culture and the “reserve” to inventory the holy relics of St. Job of Pochayiv. According to the brethren of the Pochayiv Lavra, such an act is a humiliation of the religious feelings of monks and believers, which, as Father Gabriel noted, was not done even by the communist Soviet government.

Earlier, we reported that the incorrupt relics of the Chernihiv saints, Saints Theodosius, Filaret, and St. Lawrence of Chernihiv, which are kept in the Trinity Cathedral in Chernihiv, which was taken away from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, will remain on the state’s balance sheet as museum relics. The situation with the shrines will not change, despite the position of religious organizations claiming the Holy Trinity Church.