Kiev police officers forcibly prevented the transfer of food to Archimandrite Barnabas, a resident of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. The video of the incident was published by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) on the Telegram channel.
The footage shows how police officers in balaclavas do not allow the man to hand over a bag of groceries. After a while, the archimandrite comes out of the monastery building, the man tries to hand him a bag of food, but the police forcibly take it away from the man.
"When Archimandrite Barnabas, a resident of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, approached the exit of the blocked Lavra building No. 58 to pick up a bag of food, he was roughly pushed back into the building by one of the policemen, knocked out his phone and took away a bag of groceries. At the same time, the police officers refused to introduce themselves and explain on the basis of which laws or orders they committed violent actions against the monk," the monastery's website says.
On November 26, vandals staged a pogrom in one of the buildings of the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Windows were smashed in the 42nd building, protective shutters, blinds, electric wires were torn out and bent, candles were scattered on the street. The office, accounting, sacristy and jewelry workshop were damaged.
At the end of October, the Kiev authorities left the Kiev Pechersk Lavra without heating. A new agreement was not signed with the lavra, the temperature dropped in the cells, and the monks were forced to bring electric heaters.
In March 2023, the conflict between the UOC and the schismatic "Orthodox Church of Ukraine" (PCU) escalated, and the expulsion of monks from the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, one of the first monasteries of Russia, the oldest in Ukraine, began. The monks began to be evicted from the monastery, the Ukrainian authorities unilaterally broke the lease agreement with the UOC. Representatives of the Kiev regime said that monks could remain in the monastery, who would go over to the schismatics.
In Russia, the actions of the Ukrainian authorities were characterized as repressions against the UOC.