The return of the Kyiv Caves Lavra and other ‘brutally taken away’ churches to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is essential for the support and prayerful defence of Ukraine. It was emphasised by the People’s Deputy of Ukraine Yevhenii Shevchenko on his Telegram channel on 27 February 2024, the Information and Education Department of the UOC reports.

In his post, Yevhenii Shevchenko underlined that the prayer of monks at the UOC churches at the Kyiv Caves Lavra, as well as at other churches brutally taken away from the UOC by the state, should be immediately resumed in order to support Ukraine.

The deputy also stressed the falsity of attempts to place the collective guilt for Russia’s attack on the UOC.

Making a historical overview, he noted that the leadership of Nazi Germany once placed collective guilt on the Jews. In the times of the Soviet Union, Stalin placed the collective guilt for Germany’s attack on Soviet Germans and deported them to Siberia and Kazakhstan. ‘Later, the Crimean Tatars suffered the same fate — to bear collective guilt. And now our government wants to make all the priests of the UOC guilty of Russia’s attack’, said Shevchenko.

Drawing attention to the manipulation of public opinion against the UOC through the mass media, he stressed: ‘But let me remind you that the Jewish ghetto in Germany was also supported by society. And how did it all end?’