People in civilian clothes were also busy on Friday, loading cars from buildings with plasma televisions, furniture, and other items — belongings of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, or UOC, to resident monks ahead of a threatened government eviction on March 29 were providing assistance in removal.
There were also police officers checking the cars to make sure they weren't removing items belonging to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra preserve, which oversees the complex.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is echoed here in the struggle for control of the Lavra, known in English as the Monastery of the Caves. The complex consists of church, monastery, and museum buildings. Its oldest parts date back to the beginning of Christianity a thousand years ago.
The conflict is part of a wider religious conflict that runs parallel to the war.
The Ukrainian government is already cracking down on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church over its historic ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader, Patriarch Kirill, has supported Russian President Vladimir Putin in his invasion of Ukraine.
