As Vakhtang Kipshidze, deputy chairman of the synodal department of the Moscow Patriarchate for relations between the church, society and the media, told NEWS.ru, Russian monasteries are ready to shelter the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra.

He also stressed that members of a religious community should not become strangers in their own country (Ukraine).

“Our monasteries, of course, can accept the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. But they should not become strangers in their country, where they were born, raised, became monks and prayed for decades,” Kipshidze said.

The deputy chairman also believes that “the court decision prohibiting Orthodox parishioners from visiting the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is blatant and resembles the persecution of believers after the October Revolution.”