Ukrainian authorities ban access to Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra caves - Ukrainian Orthodox Church rep

MOSCOW. March 21 (Interfax) - Access to the Near and Far Caves of the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra will be closed from March 21, according to a letter from the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra national reserve administration received by the monastery.

Metropolitan Kliment, head of the information and educational department of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), said on the UOC's YouTube channel that the access of worshippers to the caves was suspended because a commission will evaluate the safety of museum exhibits. This is how representatives of the Ukrainian Culture Ministry and the reserve call the saints' relics and other sacred objects at the monastery, the metropolitan added.

Access to the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross, the Annozachatevsky Church and the Church in Honor of the Synaxis of All the Holy Venerable Fathers of the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra (the Warm Church) is also suspended because a revision commission works there.

Earlier, the Ukrainian authorities demanded that all UOC monks living in the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra leave the territory of the monastery by March 29, when the contract with the UOC on the lease of state property is to be terminated.