The leader of Russia’s Moscow-based Orthodox Church will on Nov. 20-23 make his fourth visit to Ukraine since his election to the post in February 2009.
Controversy again hovers over Patriarch Kirill’s trip in Ukraine, where many Orthodox followers have chosen to follow a Kyiv Patriarchate.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill releases a dove during a mass prayer service on St. Volodymyr hill in Kyiv on July 27. Patriarch Kirill returns for his fourth visit to Kyiv on Nov. 20. (UNIAN) The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra (Monastery of the Caves) is at the center of the dispute for the visit to mark the 75th birthday of Metropolitan Volodymyr, aligned with Moscow.
Most of the religious buildings located on the Lavra’s compound belong to the Moscow Patriarchate.
However, three museums located on the compound -- containing more than 400,000 historical artifacts – are being forced to move out by the end of the month.
According to Lidiya Orel, who works for one of the museums located on the Lavra’s compound, the issue escalated after Kirill was made head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Kyiv’s city council voted in July to transfer city ownership of the three museums to the national government.
The Cabinet of Ministers then soon made a decision to move the museums out by the end of November.
“Politicians want to transform the Lavra from a spiritual to a pseudo-ecclesiastical compound by using the vacated museum buildings as cells for monks and hotel rooms for VIP pilgrims,” said Oleksandr Bryhynets, a Kyiv city council member with the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko.
The three museums are facing a similar fate to the Historical Museum of Kyiv, which was made to move out of the Klovsky Palace in 2004 to make way for Ukraine’s Supreme Court.
All 250,000 of the museum’s artifacts, some dating to the Stone and Bronze ages, have been kept stored in boxes on the fourth and fifth floor of the House of Ukraine on European Square.
This week, Tymofiy Kokhan, deputy culture and tourism minister, promised not to kick out the museums until another place can be found.
The Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church, one of the largest religions in Ukraine with millions of followers, has more than 9,000 priests.
