Monastic repartition

Will the UOC-MP Leave the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra?

After long maneuvers, the leadership of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra has eventually decided to fight for their “holy place”. They are pulling “recruits” – for the most part, as usual, women – to the Lavra, who are supposed to block the work of the commission on transferring the premises of the KPL to the reserve. Metropolitan Pavel has cursed President Zelenskyy and his family up to the seventh generation. Parishioners are forbidden to talk to journalists. The visors are lowered. Horses are pawing at the ground.

That said, not too many people come to the Lavra. Metropolitan Pavel has even made an appeal in the style of “Kyiv, get up”. But the capital has not echoed the call. This fact alone should prompt church leaders to think about the success of their mission – the church in general and this very monastery in particular. However, it is uncommon for the church to admit its mistakes.

Under siege

No matter how few believers have gathered to defend the premises of the monastery on the first day of the “transfer”, the forces were still unequal. The commission arrived, walked from one closed door to another and left the territory of the Lavra without gaining access to the premises. “The believers have driven the godless commission away!” – such words came thundering through the Orthodox groups in social media.

This was not true. Members of the commission walked around the Lavra, talked with the clergy and made comments to the press. They looked surprisingly calm, as if having plenty of time and facing no threat around. When asked if they were going to go to the police, the representative of the reserve answered in the negative. However, just a few hours later, the Minister of Culture announced that a statement to the police “about obstructing the work of the commission” had nevertheless been filed. Still, the feeling that no one is in a hurry has not disappeared: the authorities are not going to storm the Lavra. So they want to starve it into submission.

But will the prolongation of the conflict benefit at least one of the parties?

It can be assumed that while the commission is talking to the “Lavra” officials in front of TV cameras, hard work is underway far behind the scenes — negotiations are being carried out with each and everyone who may want to stay in the Lavra, regardless of their religious affiliation. If the negotiations are crowned with at least partial success, this will be a defeat for Metropolitan Pavel. Therefore, he makes every effort to enrage and provoke his enemy. Everyone knows that our president really hates looking like a “weakling”. He may take up the gauntlet and get involved in a fight any moment now.

And his opponent will go to any lengths to make this fight look as ugly as possible and be broadcast as widely as possible. UOC-MP Metropolitan Onufriy treats the domestic media market with deep contempt (no wonder that the latter reciprocates). But he never neglects the foreign media market. And now the leadership of the church is counting mainly on a campaign in the Western media and on the fact that at some point, when the Lavra still belongs to Metropolitan Pavel, the president will receive a phone call advising him in good English to stop the “crusade”.

Impostor Hero

For this reason, the authorities are also faced with a risk. And they have themselves alone to blame. The risk could have been avoided. If it had not been for sanctions imposed on Metropolitan Pavel, a.k.a. Pasha Mercedes (which, apparently, do not bother him too much) and if he had been placed under house arrest instead at the very least, it would be much easier to comply with the orders of the authorities in relation to the Lavra state property. It is even possible that the UOC MP would have simply agreed to the conditions offered by the authorities.

If the National Security and Defense Council is sure that Pavel poses a threat to national security, why did it leave him the opportunity to continue muddying the waters and “lead” something? Why did the Security Service of Ukraine squander time and resources investigating the activities of minor figures and leaking child molestation evidence pointing to third-rate priests instead of taking on the “main characters”?

I don’t know what the reasons were. But the consequences are obvious: Metropolitan Pavel is in the Lavra, and his supporters and opponents are becoming stronger in the opinion that “Pasha is unsinkable”. Everyone has closed ranks around his compromised and unattractive figure, from semi-literate witnesses of the “blackened crosses” to professors of the Kyiv Theological Academy and Seminary. Where only yesterday there were different opinions, where it was possible to count on the free choice and withdrawal from the Moscow Patriarchate of at least some of the worthy representatives of this church, we now observe rare solidarity. Now they have a common “external enemy” (Ukrainian authorities) and a “strong leader” (Pasha Mercedes). There are also their own “traitors”. But more on that below.

Metropolitan Pavel is, of course, an impostor hero. Suffice it to recall that the authorities did not demand that either the monks or the Theological Academy leave the Lavra, as Pavel himself asserted. Only he and the leadership of the UOC MP should have left the Lavra. For Metropolitan Onufrii of Kyiv, this is not a problem: he has long preferred a residence in the St. Panteleimon Monastery in Feofaniya Lavra, where there is too much of Pavel.

However, the latter is aware only too well that without the Lavra and the position of vicegerent, he becomes uninteresting to anyone and too vulnerable. I believe he has gone through a lot of unpleasant moments; after all, many, including those from the Lavra, persuaded Metropolitan Onufriy to sacrifice Pavel for the common good. But Onufriy said no.

This may seem strange: what is so valuable about Pasha Mercedes, who irritated everyone – the authorities, the public and the Kyiv Metropolitan himself? But it is not about Pavel at all. Rather, it is about Metropolitan Onufriy himself who would never have given grounds to presume that he has “sagged” under the demands of the worldly power.

Consequently, the struggle for the main shrine (and the most profitable enterprise) of the UOC MP has been led not by the Metropolitan of Kyiv – a purely spiritual figure – but by Metropolitan Pavel.

Life after “get out!”

The future of the Lavra is another question that does not yet have a clear answer. Well, let's say everyone has left the Lavra: monks, bishops, students. What's next?

It would seem that the answer is obvious, and popular rumor has already given it: the vacated square meters will be overtaken by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). Metropolitan Epiphany’s circle has willingly chimed in: yes, they are ready to accept and absorb it. It can be said that the process has begun.

But at the most interesting point, Minister of Culture Tkachenko rolls his eyes dreamily and promises that the Lavra will be “accessible to everyone” (as if it hadn’t been accessible before!) and that a state program should be developed on the use of its premises. For example, to hold art events. That is, the monastery is, of course, important, but …

In other words, the authorities still do not have a program and, in general, an idea of how to fill the huge area liberated from the UOC MP; the minister is just winging it. At the moment, the “program” is described by the short and beloved by us, Ukrainians, phrase “get out!” With the modality of the future tense, everything is, alas, not so simple.

However, the OCU will certainly be part of the story. Spiritual life must remain in the monastery; otherwise the eviction of the monks will indeed look like “persecution of the church”. Besides, it is precisely such an act of “historical justice” that the viewer expects from the president: taking away from “Muscovites” and giving back to your own people.

(Post-) Soviet

The OCU has already lent its hand to the authorities and, at the same time, got its foot in the half-opened door. Hardly had the ringing of bells in honor of the “last day” of the UOC MP in the Lavra subsided than Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kyiv appointed his own governor (so far in acting capacity) of the Lavra monastery. This post was given to Archimandrite Avraamiy, one of the monks living in the Lavra. Thus, the OCU has already “entered” the monastery. Although it has only one monk there so far, it’s the first step that counts. In light of this decision, the story of the Lavra no longer looks like a “godless eviction from the monastery”: the monastery was not “taken away from the monks” – it simply moved from the UOC MP to the OCU.

The haste with which the OCU is squeezing into the still “warm” walls arouses far fewer objections from the public than the readiness to accept those who only yesterday were known as “Moscow agents”. So now the OCU leadership has to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions and fight off those mounted on the moral high horse on both sides. That said, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra is a prize for which no effort is spared. In addition, excessive scrupulousness has never been inherent in the chicks of the nest of Patriarch Filaret.

However, their opponents look no better: the leadership of the UOC MP promptly banned Father Avraamiy from serving. The haste of this decision is justified: if about one monk is not punished, others will follow him. But “understanding” does not mean “forgiving”. Judge for yourself: collaborating priests and entire dioceses of the UOC MP have moved to the Russian Orthodox Church, but no one was “banned” in the Kyiv Metropolis for this, and they didn’t even express condemnation aloud. But as soon as the Lavra monk declared his desire to stay in his monastery (regardless of his religious affiliation), he got punished on the same day. This is all you need to know about the place that Ukraine and its interests occupy in the hierarchy of values of the UOC MP leadership.

It is unsurprising that the UOC MP is being deprived of its privileges before everyone's eyes, and no one is in a hurry to defend it. It enjoyed these privileges not “by the right of the canonical church”, as it convinced its friends and foes, but by the right of post-Soviet succession, thanks to cooperation with the same post-Soviet authorities (not only Ukrainian, by the way) and other powers-that-be. And now, when the USSR is unwillingly, with great resistance, but still sliding into the grave, church structures, which have always been deeply integrated into the Soviet system, are experiencing a painful crisis. They may not survive it if they cling too tightly to their (post-)Soviet roots. But they can survive it and emerge from this test renewed.

The word “they” is not accidental. After all, this is a test not only for the UOC MP. Other churches will have to go through it as well. First of all, the OCU, which is now in a hurry to pick up everything that falls from the dilapidated colossus, taking advantage of any means that can help it to achieve the desired goal. The OCU is likely to win the current race for property and privileges. But will it be able to learn from the mistakes of a defeated opponent?

Read this article in russian and Ukrainian.