On 21 August 2025 lawyers acting for the Kyiv Holy Dormition Caves Lavra filed formal requests with the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications and with the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve. The occasion was a set of photographs circulating online which, the lawyers say, record reliquaries holding the relics of the venerable fathers being opened and their contents moved from the caves to storage rooms.
The lawyers ask on what legal basis those acts were carried out and who took the decisions on opening, moving, re-vesting or otherwise interfering with the relics. They state that this was done with the participation of staff of the reserve, and they await official answers.
For the present this is a request, not an established fact. The provenance of the photographs has not been determined, we found no answer from either the ministry or the reserve, and there is no statement of the reserve’s position on the photographs. The requests were reported by counsel for the monastery.
Source: Information and Education Department of the UOC, 21 August 2025.
