Ministry of Culture hands two buildings in Lower Lavra over to OCU
The organization headed by Epifaniy (Dumenko) was granted, for free use, the residence of Metropolitan Onufriy and the building that housed the chancellery of the UOC Metropolis in the Lower Lavra.
On February 2, 2026, the Ministry of Culture announced that it had transferred two buildings in the lower part of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine for free use – Building No. 70, where Metropolitan Onufriy’s residence was located, and Building No. 49, which housed the chancellery of the Kyiv Metropolis of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Culture Minister T. Berezhna justified the decision by saying that the OCU “joins in preserving the national cultural heritage and supports Ukraine.”
At the same time, the Ministry of Culture claimed that the activity of the UOC brotherhood in the Lower Lavra “was linked to the dissemination of Russian narratives.” The text also states that the state allegedly terminated the UOC’s agreements for use of the Upper and Lower Lavras due to “numerous violations” in “observing the conditions for the use of property,” following an inspection conducted in 2023.
“The purpose of transferring the buildings of the Lower Lavra is to create proper conditions for the full implementation of the religious and monastic practices of the OCU community and continues the process of legally formalizing its ministry in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra,” the document says.
The Ministry of Culture also reported that “the Decree of the President of Ukraine and the decision of the National Security and Defense Council in 2022 initiated legal and political processes of rethinking the role of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra as an important factor of security and spirituality. In society, a clear demand has formed for the affirmation of the Lavra as a center of Ukrainian spirituality.”
Earlier, UOJ wrote that the “OCU Lavra” is a group of six people who are employees of the Ministry of Culture and receive salaries there.
