Kyiv Monastery Gerebek, Ukraine Security Service: Opponent Of Special Service Activities For Russia

Illustration of arrest by Ukrainian SBU. (Wikimedia Commons/Security Service of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - The security services (SBU) and Ukrainian police raided a 1,000-year-old Orthodox Christian monasteries in Kyiv on Tuesday morning, as part of an operation to counter the alleged "subversive activity by the Russian special service".

The Kyiv Pegersk Lavra or Kyiv Monastery of the Caves complex is the cultural treasure of Ukraine and the headquarters of the Russian-backed Ukrainian Orthodox Church, under the Moscow Patriarchate.

The Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader Patriarch Kirill strongly supports Moscow's military action in Ukraine, condemned Tuesday's attack as "an act of intimidation".

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said in a statement: "These measures were taken as part of the systemic work of SBU, to counter destructive activities from Russian special services in Ukraine," Reuters reported on November 22.

It said the search was aimed at preventing the use of cave monasteries as "Russian world centers" and was carried out to investigate suspicions "about the use of places to protect sabotage and reconnaissance groups, foreign nationals, weapons storage".

The concept of "Russian world" is at the heart of President Vladimir Putin's new foreign policy doctrine, aiming to protect Russian language, culture and religion.

This has been used by conservative ideologists to justify intervention abroad. However, the SBU did not mention the results of the raid that Tuesday.

On the same day, SBU, police and the National Guard also searched two other monasteries and the headquarters of Moscow's Patriarchic Diocese in western Ukraine, the SBU branch in the Rivne region said in a statement posted on Facebook.

The raids will further exacerbate the already very tense relationship between Russian Orthodox Christians and Ukraine.

"Like many other cases of abuse against believers in Ukraine since 2014, this act of intimidation against believers is almost certainly not noticed by those calling themselves an international human rights community," said Vladimir Legoida, spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church.

Last Friday, SBU said it had indicted a senior pastor from the western control region in connection with an attempt to distribute leaflets confirming Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, in May, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate ended its relationship with the Russian Church over the latter's support for what Moscow called a "special military operation". Ukraine says a full-scale invasion begins the war of aggression for no reason.

A 2020 survey by Kyiv-based Center Razumkov announced 34 percent of Ukrainians were identified as members of Ukraine's main Orthodox Church, while 14 percent were members of Ukraine's Moscow Patriarchic Church.

In 2019, Ukraine was granted permission by Orthodox Christian spiritual leaders around the world to form an independent church from Moscow, which has largely ended religious ties between the two countries for centuries.