The director-general of the Kievo-Pecherska Lavra National Reserve Maksym Ostapenko has said that representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have no right to “educate people” and should “serve prison terms” for allegedly betraying the state. He said in an interview with Ukrainian Radio.

“I think that the entire Ukrainian society has long been waiting for more decisive legislative actions of our parliament with regard to religious and other structures with ties to the aggressor country. This should be solved once politically, harshly and show who has the right to educate people and who should serve prison terms for treason against their state”, – Ostapenko said.

In addition, the head of the reserve claims that the UOC has remained practically in the status of an exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, and Her believers “like zombies repeat Russian narratives.”

“And here it seems to me that the UOC-MP as was an exarchate of the ROC in Ukraine – so in direct subordination and remains. They do not even try to seek a dialog with the society that cries out about what injustice was committed by Russia, and how much the society needs spiritual guidelines now. These people continue, like zombies, to repeat Russian narratives. Therefore, here both the civic position and the legislative position should be tougher”, – he said.

We shall remind you that earlier we reported that the lawyer of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, Archpriest Nikita Chekman, said that the decree of the director of the Pechersk reserve, Maxim Ostapenko, restricted access to the documents of the reserve allegedly “because of an information attack” and in the interests of “national security”. These documents were to be used in court hearings to confirm the position of the UOC.