According to Archbishop Sylvester, the Ukrainian authorities hope that the believers, who now participate daily in prayer standing in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, will get tired and disperse. The hierarch also believes that many believers are determined to defend the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra even if the hierarchy leaves it. He talks about this in a video conference with Greek journalists.

“The authorities don’t need such a picture that the Lavra now has,” the bishop noted. “They expect that gradually the people will get tired, or summer will begin and many will disperse – and, thus, the people who gather near the Lavra will gradually disperse. Plus, of course, there is a well-known method – different formats of intimidation, ”says the archbishop.

The rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy also emphasized the situation with the subpoenas, by which “particularly active priests and Orthodox activists are summoned to court as witnesses on the issue of resistance to the work of the commission of the Ministry of Culture on the seizure of the Lavra. However, according to Ukrainian law, it is quite easy to reclassify the status of a witness into the status of an accused.”

Archbishop Sylvester believes that summons may soon be handed to both activists and students of the Kyiv Theological Academy and Seminary.