Ukrainian security forces raided a 1,000-year-old Orthodox Christian monastery in Kyiv on Tuesday as part of an operation to counter alleged "subversive activities of Russian special services."
The sprawling Kyiv Monastery of the Caves complex, a Ukrainian cultural treasure and the headquarters of the Russian-backed wing of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, belongs to the Moscow Patriarchate. The Russian Orthodox Church, whose head Patriarch Kirill has strongly supported Moscow's military actions in Ukraine, condemned the raid as an "act of intimidation."
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said in a statement that the operation was part of "the systemic work of the SBU to counter the destructive activities of the Russian special services in Ukraine." He added that the raids were aimed at preventing the use of the Cave Monastery as "the center of the Russian world" and were carried out to investigate suspicions "about the use of the facilities... to house sabotage groups and reconnaissance, foreign nationals, weapons storage".
The concept of "Russian world" is at the center of President Vladimir Putin's new foreign policy doctrine that aims to protect Russia's language, culture and religion. This doctrine has been used by conservative ideologues to justify the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
The SBU, police and National Guard also searched two other monasteries and the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate diocese in western Ukraine on Tuesday, the Rivne region branch of the SBU said in a statement posted on Facebook.
These raids will further sour already tense relations between Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians. “Like many other cases of persecution of believers in Ukraine since 2014, this act of intimidation of believers will almost certainly go unnoticed by those calling themselves the international human rights community,” said Vladimir Legoida, a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church.
Last Friday, the SBU said it had accused a senior cleric from the western Vinnytsia region of trying to distribute leaflets justifying Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In May, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate ended its ties with the Russian Church over the latter's support of what Moscow calls its "special military operation."
A 2020 survey by the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center found that 34% of Ukrainians identify as members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, while 14% were members of the Moscow Patriarchate Church of Ukraine. .
In 2019, Patriarch Kirill, as the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians around the world, gave Ukraine permission to form an independent church from Moscow, largely ending centuries of religious ties between the two countries.
