The Ministry of Culture claims to transfer UOC property to the OCU "by law" and not because of confessional preferences

Vice Prime Minister for Humanitarian Policy and Minister of Culture of Ukraine Tetiana Berezhna said that the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine «adheres to strict legal logic and principles of responsibility when transferring buildings to religious communities, rejecting the confessional approach.» Berezhna emphasized that Ukraine is a secular state, so it does not consider state-religious relations in terms of confessional preferences.

According to Interfax-Ukraine, Tetyana Berezhna clarified this during a national telethon on Tuesday, December 24: «The Ministry of Culture does not act according to confessional logic, but according to the logic of law, responsibility, and compliance of the object with its historical and functional purpose.» She added that the agreement with the OCU on the use of the Kyiv Cave Monastery buildings is written in such a way as to benefit both the reserve and the religious community and Ukraine as a whole.

The Vice Prime Minister emphasized the need to cooperate exclusively with those communities that operate within the legal framework and actively contribute to the preservation of cultural heritage sites. In this context, she reminded that the previous user, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, allegedly «maintained the buildings with violations and in an unsatisfactory condition, in particular, new buildings appeared on the territory of the reserve.»

Earlier, we reported that the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine transferred the first two buildings on the territory of the Lower Lavra to the representatives of the OCU for free use. We are talking about the 49th and 70th buildings — the residences of the Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine and the Chancellery of the Kyiv Metropolis.