The superior of the Kiev Caves Monastery, Metropolitan Pavel Lebed, has accused Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky of pressuring and persecuting Orthodox Christians across the country, following measures against them for their historic ties with Russia.
«We are fed up with the enemy hitting our people, we are fed up with misery and pain when people go hungry and cold,» he said in video message addressed to Zelenski.
«Do you want to take away people’s faith as well? Do you want to take away our last hope? Don’t do it,» the clergyman demanded, asking him not to take away from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church its two main places of worship, declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.
As part of the martial law decreed by Zelensky, Ukraine has banned religious organizations with ties to Russia. In November, the Ukrainian secret service, the SBU, searched the Cave Monastery, the main sanctuary of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, as well as other facilities of this denomination.
Lebed has asked Zelenski not to «throw out» the faithful from their holy places after they received news this week that they would not be allowed to hold religious services in this sanctuary.
At the same time he also reproached Kiev for the pressures that would have been exerted so that the Ukrainians celebrate Christmas Day on December 25 as the Gregorian calendar of the Christians of the West, to the detriment of January 7, as the Julian calendar of the Orthodox dictates.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
