Kiev, March 31, 2025

Photo: was.media

On Friday, a state commission was sent to the Holy Dormition-Kiev Caves Lavra to “inspect” the incorrupt relics that lie in the Near and Far Caves. The group cut off the locks to the Caves and installed their own in order to block the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church from accessing the Caves.

The commission was tasked with checking the “presence of the remains of saints,” and “determining the historical and scientific value of the remains of the saints.” Items identified as “cultural values” are to be catalogued.

According to the Union of Orthodox Journalists, the commission includes embryologists, biologists, anatomists, which suggests that the commission is doing more than simply “inspecting” the relics.

Nevertheless, hierarchs of the UOC remain calm and prayerful, certain that the saints of the Caves will defend themselves. They are sure that the whole affair will end poorly for the blasphemers.

His Eminence Metropolitan Theodosy of Cherkasy, who is himself a personal target for persecution by the state, said:

Brothers and sisters, let us not panic, but maintain reasonable calm. Everything is happening as it was meant to happen. Where this matter is heading became obvious to many not today, not yesterday, and not even three years ago…

Today, the Venerable Fathers of the Caves don’t need our help or protection. They’ll protect us themselves. Very soon they will protect us.

It’s just that their POWER and their RIGHT to our land is not understood by those who are now tampering with their relics. They are doing just what their spiritual predecessors did in 1922 and 1941. They also did not understand. So, let them tamper.

A few years ago, when full-scale persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was just beginning in our country, and the inhabitants of the Lavra were still skeptically smiling at questions about whether they would allow the authorities to divide the Upper Lavra between the Church and the OCU, I heard these words from one secular but sensible person: “If only they would not touch the Caves and the relics of the saints. This will end tragically.” Tragically for the blasphemers.

We have all already suffered from their lawlessness and impunity. But we can do nothing about it. However, unlike us, the venerable saints can.

Shortly before Abbot of the Svyatogorsk Lavra, Metropolitan Arseny, was thrown behind bars, in response to the weeping and complaints of believers about the events taking place, Vladyka said: “The last word will belong to the saints of the Kiev Caves.”

And now the persecutors are forcing the saints to give this word sooner.

Let us place our hope in the saints with faith. And let the lawless ones do their work faster…

His Eminence Metropolitan Pavel, the abbot of the Kiev Caves Lavra who is currently being held under house arrest and not permitted to visit his own monastery, said:

I asked for the Caves to be opened to the people, and I am confident that this will happen soon. I hope the entire Lavra will be completely opened as well. After all, only prayer can help those in power and the state, so we need not to close churches, but to open them, so that God’s people can offer communal prayer. Only enemies of Ukraine can destroy and seize churches, transferring them to unknown entities.

If it’s not possible to enter the Caves, take an icon of the venerable saints, read an akathist, canons, and troparia to them. Our churches, where the holy Fathers of the Caves are especially venerated, are also open. Pray to them that the Lord may bring understanding to the persecutors of the Church, so that they too may turn to God, Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4).

And His Eminence Metropolitan Viktor of Khmelnitsky, recalling his days in seminary at the Lavra, said:

Everyone went to the Caves with their own requests: Seminarians asked St. Nestor the Chronicler for help in learning and passing exams, the sick turned to St. Agapit for healing, soldiers went to St. Ilya of Murom for blessing for military service…

But times have come when this human flow to our shrine has ceased. Now, unfortunately, it’s impossible to even enter the Caves and pray to God’s saints, impossible to feel that Heaven on earth about which St. John Climacus wrote and which the Caves saints obtained through their spiritual labors and prayers.

Today, the relics of the Caves saints, our greatest sacred treasure, which are venerated by Orthodox people in many countries and on all continents, are now going to be studied from the point of view of their scientific and historical value. For this purpose, a commission was created, which included biologists, embryologists, and even veterinarians.

Twice a year, the brotherhood of the Kiev Caves Lavra used to re-vest the holy relics. This was done by monks with constant prayer on their lips, reverently touching the relics of the ascetics. According to Church teaching, the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is received by God’s saints, sanctifies not only their souls but also their bodies, and does not leave them even after bodily death. How will the scientists who are part of the commission for the “inventory of saints” handle the relics? Will they touch them with prayer? Will they believe in their holiness? How will they determine for themselves the “scientific value” of the holy relics?

All these questions resonate with pain and sorrow in the heart of every believing Christian. We’re all suffering now, watching as our world-famous relics of the Kiev Caves saints may be desecrated! Yes, we’re very pained by this! But let us open the Gospel and read how Christ was led to Golgotha, how He was humiliated, beaten, spat upon.

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