Archbishop Ahapit of Vyshhorod, head of the Vyshhorod Diocese, vicar of the St. Michael Golden-Top Monastery of the OCU, while visiting the Kremenchuk Church of Seraphim of Sary, said that the monks who are with the UOC (MP), still live in the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra.
He finds it inappropriate to consider forcibly evicting them, Kremenchutska Hazeta wrote.
“Today, in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, there our monks, who are with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and there is a new vicar, Bishop Avraamiy, the Lavra’s former inhabitant… Of course, we hoped that a certain number of monks from the Moscow Patriarchate would join of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, but today they stand their ground and there is a small part still living at the premises. Of course, we don’t want to throw anyone out of there by force, drive them out, things like that. Perhaps they are waiting for us to do so, but we understand that it would lead to nothing good,” said the OCU bishop.
“We hope that this issue will be resolved on a normal human and ethical plane,” said Archbishop Ahapit.
