CNN
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Vertically shot video released last November shows no weapons, brutal battlefields or even soldiers. But the sound of a patriotic Russian song reverberating through a church on the grounds of Kyiv’s famous Lavra monastery seems to open a new front in Ukraine’s war with Russia.
The church belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) – despite its name, is traditionally loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church, and whose current leader, Patriarch Kiril, has come out publicly. support the brutal invasion of Moscow. Split with Kiril, the UOC leadership denounced Russia’s aggression, and this past May declared its independence from Russia.
In a sermon a few days after the split, Patriarch Kiril said he was praying that “no temporary external obstacle can destroy the spiritual unity of our people.”
Days after the video surfaced, masked members of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) conducted a raid on Lavra – officially to prevent it from being used to “hide groups of destruction” sabotage and reconnaissance” or “storage of weapons”.
By December, several church leaders had been punished and dozens of other churches around the country had been raided by the SBU – although searches had yielded only a few passports, icons and books. Russia.
“There is no mention in the findings of weapons or saboteurs. What they said they found were publications, documents, not prohibited by Ukrainian law,” UOC Bishop Metropolitan Klyment told CNN in an interview.
There are a lot of gray areas, however. In a statement, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told CNN that it is not illegal to store Russian propaganda material, but to distribute it. “If such publications are in the diocesan library or on the shelf of a church store, it is clearly intended for mass distribution,” the statement read.
It stressed that the attacks on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church were “only aimed at matters of national security. This is not a matter of religion.” However, Vladimir Legoyda, a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, criticized the searches as an “act of intimidation”.
Professor Viktor Yelenskyi, Ukraine’s newly appointed religious freedom watchdog, says that for more than 30 years, the UOC leadership has “poisoned people with the ideas of the Russian world.” He defended the SBU’s attacks, comparing them to the post-9/11 crackdown on Islamic extremism. “Ukraine remains a safe haven for religious freedom.”
However, at the end of 2022, the government refused to renew the church lease for the cathedral in central Lavra and transferred the keys to the similarly named but completely different Ukrainian Orthodox Church (OCU). separate. Rival OCU celebrated Orthodox Christmas (on January 7) there for the first time this year.
Speaking outside the church on Christmas Day, Alla, who declined to give her last name, said: “I think this should have been done a long time ago.”
“We endured this [UOC] evil and turn a blind eye to thinking they should be tolerant, but war has exposed it all.”
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church held Christmas Mass this year in a smaller church, just a few steps from the cathedral. Kyrylo Serheyev, a student at Lavra seminary, said that especially this year, he prayed for the Ukrainian army. And despite government sanctions and close scrutiny of his church, he insists “our patriotism has not diminished.”
Viktoria Vinnyk said she was very sad that this year she could not celebrate Mass at the central cathedral. Although she speaks Russian, she has never been to Russia.
“I hope better things come to my country. And I hope that the situation will change,” she said.
Churches aren’t the only holy places that change hands. Outside Kyiv, in the village of Vita Poshtova, a small church sits on a hillside above a frozen Soviet-era lake. It is the only one in the village. In September, the congregation voted to convert the church from a UOC to an independent OCU. Parishioner Olha Mazurets says she is uncomfortable with any connection with Russia.
“It is a matter of identity and self-preservation. We also have to identify our enemies,” she told CNN.
Father Pavlo Mityaev, newly appointed priest said before the war, “people don’t pay attention to whether it is Ukrainian or Russian speaking church, they are going to God. But when the war started, everything changed.”
According to Klyment, as many as 400 of the UOC’s 12,000 churches in Ukraine have converted to the OCU since the war began.
The security services say that since the full-blown invasion began, 19 church chaplains have been charged and five have been convicted.
In December, UOC priest Andriy Pavlenko was sentenced to 12 years for passing information about Ukrainian battlefield positions in the Donbas to the Russians. A week later, he was sent to Russia as part of a prisoner exchange.
Klyment admits to the priest’s guilt but dismisses other cases – like priest Vinnytsia indicted just this week for disseminating pro-Russian propaganda – as hollow accusations. He thinks the broader church is being unjustly tarnished.
“Members of the Ukrainian Orthodox… are citizens of Ukraine, and sometimes the best citizens of Ukraine, demonstrating patriotism with their lives,” he said, referring to UOC members. fighting on the front lines.
In his nightly address on December 1, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was ready to weather the attacks – proposing legislation that would ban churches with “centers of influence” in Russia from operating in Ukraine – all in the name of “spiritual independence”.
“We will never allow anyone to build an empire within Ukraine’s soul,” he said.
But Klyment believes that law will only put his church in a quandary.
“What do you call persecution if not this?” he asks.
