The abbot and brotherhood of the persecuted Kiev Caves Lavra published a video appeal to the President, Ministers, and Deputies of Ukraine yesterday, calling on the state to leave the monks in peace to carry out their vocation of prayer.
The brotherhood was informed on March 10 that the state is breaking its lease with the Church to use the Lower Lavra and that the monks have until March 29 to vacate the premises. The Lavra has been a state-run museum since Soviet times, and its territory is divided into the Upper and Lower Lavras. The Church was already kicked out of the Upper Lavra at the end of last year.
The Lavra has continually appealed for peace, for the state to end its persecution of the Church and the monastery, but to no avail. His Eminence Metropolitan Pavel of Vyshgorod, the abbot of the monastery, said in another video address on Monday that the monks have no intention of leaving their home.
“There is no choice before us—we have already made it,” Met. Pavel tells the authorities in yesterday’s appeal, flanked by dozens of monks. “We came to the Lavra to dedicate our lives to serving God, to prayer, to the people.”