Vyshinsky believes that searches in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra will not be carried out without Zelensky’s instructions

MOSCOW, November 22 – RIA Novosti. The member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation and the managing director of the media group Rossiya Segodnya said that the searches in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra could not be carried out without the instruction of Vladimir Zelensky. Kirill Vyshinsky.

Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian internet broadcaster Strana.ua reported that the SBU had “calls” to the territory of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

“I suspect that the Ukrainian nationalists have a big holiday today. They always wanted to go to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra – I remember how in 2004 and 2014 on the Maidan there were shouted slogans to take the oldest monastery. A pillar of spirituality always guides people in the most difficult moments and when he was shamelessly drawn into politics and absurd accusations were hung on him, this indicates a complete moral degradation of the Ukrainian authorities. If there was an order from the Head of the SBU, he would not have dared to do this, “Vyshinsky’s statement published on the Telegram-SFC channel.

Previously, the SBU opened a criminal case for allegedly singing a song about “Glorifying Russia” at a ceremony in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. The abbot of the Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel (Lebed), stated that Father Zacharias, who allowed the parishioners to sing “a secular song that has nothing to do with worship,” was forbidden to perform rituals and prayers. Previously, the Lavra governor was included in the database of the Ukrainian nationalist website “Peacemaker”. The site is known for its scandalous publications, in which journalists called the data of the militia of the Donbass republics and other citizens “traitors to the motherland.”

The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra was transferred by the state to the free ownership of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). In May, the schismatic Ukrainian Orthodox Church (OCU) announced the creation of a religious organization that it wanted to acquire one of the temples in the Lavra. The UOC believes that the OCU tried to seize the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra by establishing a monastery there.

OCU was formed from two schismic organizations at the end of 2018 at the initiative of the former president of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople against the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. In 2019, the Patriarchate of Constantinople awarded an “autocephalic tomos” to the OCU. However, OCU is actually affiliated with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and most of the 15 local Orthodox churches around the world do not recognize it as canonical.