Ministry of Justice to inspect 178 sites on Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra territory

The Justice Ministry of Ukraine will check 178 facilities on the territory of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra used by the UOC, hromadske.ua reports.

On 9 December 2022, the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers instructed it to check within two months whether there are legal grounds and whether the conditions of using the property on the territory of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve are complied with.

On December 28, 2022, the Ministry of Justice sent a letter to the Ministry of Culture with a request to provide the full addresses of immovable property and cadastral numbers of land plots on the territory of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. The Ministry of Culture and Information Policy provided this information on 19 January 2022. The list contains 178 names of both the Upper and Lower Lavra.

An MP and the deputy head of the parliamentary Committee for Humanitarian and Information Policy, Yevheniya Kravchuk, said that the Ministry of Justice will check the UOC’s lease of the Lower Lavra property, explaining that the facilities of the Lower Lavra were transferred to the UOC in perpetual use under Prime Minister Mykola Azarov.

"The contract is written in such a way that in fact, the state cannot initiate its termination even in court. The way out could be a check on the observance of the law because it is no secret that construction on the Lavra territory was in full swing," Kravchuk said.

As reported, the directorate of the Reserve said that now the Ministry of Culture will decide which communities will pray in the Lavra.