Bishop Silvanus of Australia and New Zealand (SOC) appealed to the Australian authorities in connection with the concerns of Orthodox believers throughout Australia about “the open persecution and violation of religious freedoms and human rights, which is taking place before our eyes in the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.”

“The monks of this ancient monastery, who, like their predecessors, centuries before them, lived in monastic seclusion and prayer, were ordered by the state authorities of Kiev to leave the lower Lavra monastery by March 29 of this year. The Brotherhood, like the rest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) throughout Ukraine, was persecuted by the state only because it remained faithful to the canonical order and structure of the Holy Orthodox Church.

The reason for this persecution is that the UOC refuses to submit to politics and becomes part of a state-imposed nationalist entity known as the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine”.

The persecution of monasticism in the aforementioned Lavra is actually part of the nationalist conflagration politically ignited and fanned by the Ukrainian government in Kyiv. <…>

Note that the Kyiv authorities and international governments hide the plight of monasticism. Therefore, I urge you, the Prime Minister of our democratic and sovereign state of Australia, to do the right thing and demand from the Ukrainian authorities to respect and protect democratic rights, religious freedoms and freedoms of conscience, especially with regard to monasticism in Ukraine, Kiev, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” writes the hierarch.