INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Early one morning in July 2023, I boarded a minibus for a weekend pilgrimage to the Pochaiv Monastery in western Ukraine
the six-hour journey, the woman next to me kept her head down, reciting feverishly from a pocket-sized prayer book
Her eight-year-old daughter and the other passengers whiled away the time watching films, in Russian, about various holy men including St
Iov, the 17th-century abbot of Pochaiv
To view his relics, you slither like a fish through a small hole in the rock to reach an underground cave
monastery, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year, belongs to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate
The prelate has turned a blind eye to rapes, summary executions and other war crimes in Ukraine because he sees the invasion as part of a
The two churches have confusingly similar names and follow the same rituals, but they are poles apart
centuries, the Moscow-linked church was the only recognized branch of Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine
After the collapse of the U.S.S.R., many Ukrainians demanded spiritual autonomy from Moscow
Infighting between rival independent churches delayed the process
But finally, in 2018, two churches in Kyiv merged to form the Orthodox Church of Ukraine
Constantinople Patriarch, based in Istanbul, is the closest equivalent
5, 2019, Bartholomew signed a decree of independence, known as a tomos
inconveniently located in another country
independently of Russia.Kirill, too, was furious
His church stood to lose at least one-fifth of its 150 million members, thousands of parishes and several hundred churches and
Father Ioann Shevchenko was forced at gunpoint to allow Russian snipers into the bell tower of his church in the village of Bobryk, east of
Their Grad rockets had smashed into his Church of the Ascension, destroying the roof and blowing out the windows
basement, their hands tied behind their backs
Like 12,338 other parishes in Ukraine, Bobryk had belonged to the UOC
After the month-long occupation in the spring of 2022, neither Shevchenko nor his parishioners wanted anything to do with a church that
Kateryna, the woman next to me on the minibus to Pochaiv, came from Bucha, where more than 400 civilians were massacred by Russian troops at
the beginning of the invasion
The atrocities committed there galvanized many countries into sending weapons to Ukraine
On the same day that pictures of corpses lying in the streets of the commuter town were beamed around the world, the Patriarch gave a sermon
They had endured three terrifying weeks cowering in their cellar
To date, 26 UOC clerics have been convicted of treacherous acts.Shell marks are visible around the entrance to the Svyatohirsk
Its whitewashed walls were freshly scarred by shelling
I was hoping to meet the abbot, Metropolitan Arseniy, but was told he was indisposed
Perhaps he was feeling vulnerable because Zelensky had issued a decree in December 2022 suspending his Ukrainian citizenship
Nine months after my visit, he was arrested for allegedly sharing information with the Russians about Ukrainian army checkpoints in the
He brushed aside a question about influence from Moscow and told me that the monks do not listen to Kirill
Yet he repeated familiar Kremlin rhetoric justifying the invasion
Oleksandr Drabynko in Kyiv and Metropolitan Symeon Shostatskyi from Vinnytsia, west of the capital
tomos several clerics told me that they would have liked to join the Orthodox Church of Ukraine
Ukrainian citizenship in May 2012 by the Kremlin-friendly ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych
Yanukovych secured a seat for Novinsky in the Ukrainian parliament as a member of his Party of Regions
ordained a protodeacon of the UOC in 2020
Novinsky in red and gold vestments officiating at the Easter service at a Russian Orthodox Church in Zurich
from different churches across Ukraine had died from Russian shelling or were killed execution-style by Russian troops
Some clerics fear there could be ugly scenes over church property next summer and are urging restraint
A brawl filmed at a monastery south of Kyiv, in which OCU parishioners attacked their counterparts in the UOC worried Archimandrite Cyril
than 1,000 parishioners echoed his concerns: "Clashes and conflicts over church buildings disgrace Orthodox Christianity
Faith is not measured by the number of square meters in a cathedral or a monastery
For our unchristian behavior, the Lord will empty our churches, 'taken away from the enemies'."Ukrainians take pride in being more devout
than their eastern neighbors
Viktor Yelenskiy, head of the National Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience gave a scaling assessment of Russia
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