Metropolitan Kliment, in an interview with Telegraf, said that the Ministry of Culture was in a certain confusion and fear that the monks would really leave and then the Lavra would remain on their shoulders: not only an architectural, but above all a sacred complex.

“If there are no relics in the caves in the Lavra, if they are just like museum exhibits, as Minister of Culture Tkachenko said, and not as religious shrines, then there will be no pilgrimage to them and the Lavra will lose its meaning. Lavra simply will not be the spiritual center of Ukraine,” the metropolitan believes.

The bishop is also confident that today the Ukrainian authorities will not attempt to forcibly evict the monks from the Lavra monastery, which some politicians recently threatened.

“At first it could be, and this was openly stated by certain politicians who clearly threatened the monks and believers that they would be used against them by force. Not necessarily on the part of the police, but also on the part of various radical elements, one way or another affiliated with the law enforcement agencies,” the bishop added.

Also, to the suggestion that the Ministry of Culture might invite the OCU, the metropolitan replied: “Maybe he would like to do this, but there is no one to invite. Today, more than 200 monks live in the Lavra, and according to the official statistics of the State Service for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience, there are about 200 monks in the entire OCU throughout Ukraine. The OCU simply cannot carry out the mission that needs to be carried out in this monastery.”