The Ukrainian government has expelled the Orthodox Church from the world famous Monastery of the Caves in Kiev due to contractual violations, according to an official letter on Friday.
The contract, concluded in 2013, is to be terminated as of March 29, said the letter from the state administration of the museum site published by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
The move was based on a decree issued by President Volodymyr Zelensky in December last year, reviewing the activities of religious communities after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Zelensky sees the Orthodox Church in Ukraine as riddled with Russian spies.
The expulsion concerns the premises of the lower part of the cave monastery, where the entrances to the caves created by monks in the Middle Ages are located.
Before Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year, the church aligned itself with the Patriarchate in Moscow.
The Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow reacted with horror to the news of the expulsion, calling it the "height of lawlessness" in Ukraine.
"A lawlessness that has been unfolding towards millions of faithful Ukrainians for years," Moscow's church spokesman Vladimir Legoida said.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been under growing pressure all this time, he said. "Cases of violent takeovers, arson and desecrations of churches, assaults on clergy have accumulated, a variety of threats have been issued." The people of the world would remember these "ruthless acts" forever, the spokesman said.
In January, access to the main church buildings at the top of the monastery hill was withdrawn, so Christmas mass for the traditional Orthodox Christmas on January 7 was held in the Cathedral of the Assumption by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, founded with state aid in 2018.
