"This is a state-sponsored desecration of the spiritual center": Amsterdam on the ‘expertise’ of the relics of Kiev-Pechersk saints

The head of the international human rights company Amsterdam & Partners LLP, Robert Amsterdam, who represents the legal interests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, criticized the invasion of the commission of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine into the Caves of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra to conduct an “examination” of the relics of the Kyiv-Pechersk saints. The lawyer called what was happening a planned and state-sponsored act of desecration of shrines. Amsterdam’s statement was published on the website SavetheUOC.com.

“This is nothing more than a state-sponsored desecration of a place that has been a spiritual center for almost a millennium. The government’s actions directly violate both Ukrainian law and international conventions on freedom of religion. The fact that the Ukrainian authorities conducted such a raid just a few days after the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom discussed the protection of holy relics in Ukraine is another provocation,” — the lawyer said.

The lawyer noted that the monks of the Kyiv Cave Monastery of the UOC refused to participate in the “revision” of the relics of the Kyiv Cave Monks, as they consider such actions against the shrines blasphemous. Amsterdam compared what is happening to the Soviet period of atheistic persecution of the Church.

“These holy relics have been reverently kept by the monks of the Kyiv Cave Monastery for almost 1,000 years. After they were confiscated during the Soviet era, historical justice was finally restored when they were returned to the care of the Church at the beginning of this century. This raid represents a disturbing return to Soviet-era tactics of religious persecution,” — he added.