Palm Sunday is celebrated in Kyiv church at center of feud
Orthodox rites mark first major event since eviction of allegedly pro-Moscow monks.
KYIV, Ukraine — Willow branches in hand, Ukrainians marked Palm Sunday on the Orthodox calendar at the country’s most revered Orthodox site, which has been at the heart of a religious dispute playing out in parallel with the war initiated by Russia last year.
Dozens of worshipers filled the grand Refectory Church of Sts. Anthony and Theodosius inside the KyivPechersk Lavra monastic complex.
The occasion marks the first significant religious service to be held in the complex after the March 29 eviction order issued by the Ukrainian government against Orthodox monks residing in the monastery over their alleged links to Russia. The monks had refused to leave the premises before the eviction deadline.
Sunday’s service was peaceful, with some police presence by the entrances of the complex.
The site, which is known in English as the Monastery of the Caves, is owned by the Ukrainian government, and the state agency overseeing the property notified the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in March that it was terminating its lease. The move comes amid a wider crackdown on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church over its historical ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader, Patriarch Kirill, has supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Worshipers welcomed the eviction order.
“I am very glad that this is finally happening, that the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is cleared of Moscow roots and it is renewed and comes to life,” Yulia Sencuk said. “By these very events, we are more likely to bring our victory closer.”
Meanwhile, weekend shelling by Russian forces killed at least seven civilians, Ukrainian officials reported Sunday.
While Russia continued to concentrate on seizing all of Ukraine’s industrial east, two other provinces — Kharkiv in the northeast and Zaporizhzhia in the southeast — came under missile, rocket and artillery fire, the Ukrainian military said. The governor of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said two communities there were bombed by warplanes late Sunday, but he did not immediately report any casualties.
Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said two men died Sunday in shelling in Kupiansk, a city that Russia held before Ukrainian forces regained control of almost all of the province.
The city remained under attack later Sunday as Russian forces targeted residential areas with rocket launchers, Syniehubov said. Elsewhere in the province, a 30-year-old man was hospitalized in serious condition after Russian shelling of the city of Chuhuiv, the governor said on Telegram.
Shelling also killed two people overnight, one of them a 10- or 11-year-old child, in the city of Zaporizhzhia, the capital of that province, a city official said.
The Zaporizhzhia region’s governor, Yurii Malashko, said 18 communities were shelled. Three people were killed and five were wounded on Saturday, Malashko said.