Why Russian priests are being expelled from a monastery in Kyiv

In my hometown we have three Orthodox churches, two of which are formally aligned with the Moscow patriarchate. They mostly say Russian prayers but, growing up, this was not seen as important. My family would go to both and see them as interchangeable: you’d stand, pray, kiss icons, take communion. Many Ukrainians never gave it much thought. This all changed when Vladimir Putin invaded last year. Only then was it clear just how he had been using the Russian church as a tool of his state: not just in Russia, but in Ukraine too.

Previously neutral priests publicly prayed for Putin’s success, telling their parishioners how to help the invading forces. When Ukrainian forces investigated, they found guns, rubles and Soviet symbols in some church vaults. Abbots were arrested for handing over the coordinates of the Ukrainian positions. Even Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who in 2019 recognised the newly established Orthodox Church of Ukraine, said Russia’s Orthodox Church shared responsibility for the war in Ukraine.

Now the Ukrainian government plans to expel all Russian Orthodox priests from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a massive Orthodox monastery in the middle of Kyiv. This is deeply controversial and, to some outsiders, may look like a divisive action in a country where 30 per cent of the population speak Russian and 13.8 per cent were Russian Orthodox Church members. But it has to be understood in the context of Putin’s well-documented politicisation of that church.

Doctrinally, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is identical: there are no freedom of religion issues. It’s just whether the ecclesiastical hierarchy reports to Moscow or Kyiv. All Russian Orthodox priests have been offered a way out – to switch to the Kyiv ecclesiastical hierarchy and to continue their service in Lavra and other churches. But also, next month, a law may be passed allowing Russian Orthodox clerics to continue if they can prove they have no links with Moscow.

But the golden-domed Lavra is perhaps the most famous church in Ukraine – and a special case. Although it was founded in 1051 and the first mention of Moscow didn’t come until almost a century later, the Russian Church ran it for centuries. Ten years ago, Russian Orthodox priests were given free use of 75 buildings in the complex – but they were recently found to have used them to store Russian passports (dual citizenship is forbidden in Ukraine), pro-Putin literature, flags, and bags full of cash in dollars, hryvnias, and rubles.

So the handover from Russian to Ukrainian priests is a big deal. Clerics from the Moscow patriarchate must vacate the religious buildings of the monastery and hand back the property by Wednesday. The Russian Orthodox clerics are suing, so may not leave the building soon. But some Lavra priests have been seen loading books, chairs, boilers, sofas and sinks into cars. A commission has been established to monitor that the church relics are not removed.

Before the full-scale war there were 8,797 Russian Orthodox churches in Ukraine. In December last year that number decreased by 212. These switched to Ukrainian orthodoxy. The changing face of religion is one of the many ways in which Ukrainian society is being reshaped by this war.