Who is Kyiv Lavra being protected from?
In 2025, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Reserve will spend 23,833,410.02 UAH on security services.
This means that for someone from the police to monitor the alarm system and a few staff members to stand at the entrance to the Lavra, the state will pay 65,000 UAH per day or nearly half a million UAH per week.
But why are such exorbitant sums being spent, and who is the Lavra being protected from?
Let us recall that since August 10, 2023, UOC believers have been barred from entering the Lower Lavra. For all this time, access to the churches and the relics of the Venerable Fathers of the Caves has been impossible. It seems that the sanctuary is being protected specifically from UOC parishioners. Photos showing priests forced to give Communion through a grille because of this very "security" make this clear.
Let us take a step back and think about this situation objectively. In fact, the state is not protecting the monastery from hooligans or criminals but from believers. And it’s doing so using their own money (since they are taxpayers). Yet the Lavra was originally built for these very believers.
If we follow this logic further, then universities should be protected from students, theaters from audiences, stadiums from athletes, and hospitals from patients.
If we are to be logical, we should take it to the very end.
