but there were others who, after the service, shouted that the 16th should now be considered holy. what about that? for today, you can read more news on our website bbc.ua and subscribe to our pages on social networks , my facebook, twitter, instagram, tiktoku, and youtube. you can watch our news release if you suddenly missed it on the air. see you tomorrow . mykolay is hurrying across the field through the grove in his bag, bringing us gifts tanks, javelins , planes and mines, guns and cartridges, rockets and

drones, mykolay is in a hurry, pave the way for ukrainians will present a complete victory merry christmas and a happy new year congratulations to this freedom life my name is vlasta lazar today in the issue for the first time in history the head of the orthodox church of ukraine epiphanius invites to the christmas service in the assumption cathedral of the kyiv-pechersk lavra literally a week ago, the priests of the ukrainian orthodox church of the moscow patriarchate performed the service there what religious, historical and political significance does this event have and what trump cards remain in the uoc mp russian president vladimir putin instructed defense minister sergei shoigu to introduce ceasefire in honor of the celebration of christmas, this happened after the head of the russian orthodox church , patriarch kirill, who openly approves of the war, and the turkish president erdogan, during his conversation with putin, asked for a truce, what does this mean and it cannot be taken away, it cannot

be left where to put who if it is about the deputy mandates of the representatives of the banned opzj, dozens of current deputies , including the executive servant of the people, refused to put their signatures on the removal of the mandates of deputies from the banned pro-russian parties as such it turned out, we will also talk about it. today, like this broadcast if you watch us on the internet and support our work for christmas in the lavra . if such a service takes place, it will be the first liturgy in the history of the head of the autocephalous orthodox church of ukraine in the kyiv-pechersk lavra, a historical event without exaggeration, experts uspenskyi say the cathedral is considered the main temple of the lavra, and until december 31, the priests of the ukrainian orthodox church of the

moscow patriarchate performed services there. at the end of 2022 , the right to lease temples to the uoc mp expired, do you remember how the vicar of the lavra, metropolitan pavlo , even appealed to volodymyr zelenskyi and asked not to take the temples from the uoc mp for territory of the lavra, but the state that is the owner of these premises did not extend the right to lease, minister of culture oleksandr tkachenko today officially informed the dormition cathedral and the trapezoidal church of the kyiv-pechersk lavra officially returned to state use and the day before it became known that instead of the uoc mp in the main church on the territory of the lavra, the christmas service will be conducted by the head of the orthodox church of ukraine, since the orthodox church of ukraine received the tomos, journalists often asked the head of the orthodox church metropolitan epiphany when the ukrainian independent church will be able to regain its independence lavruchy, is it even real, epiphanius always answered that he believed that the time would come and he would serve in the lavra, perhaps epiphanius really believed that, frankly speaking

such an answer looked like well, if not fantastic, then a very distant prospect. and literally a year and a half ago, he had an epiphany in the kyiv studio of radio svoboda. he is asked again whether the ukrainian church will ever be able to regain the ukrainian shrines of the laurel. border, zelensky does not lose hope of negotiating peace with putin, and the positions of the uoc mp in ukraine are, without exaggeration, quite strong, and this is what the epiphany corresponds to. when, after all, will the lavras be our ukrainian lavras belong to the ukrainian church, and if you remember, we very quickly collected the appropriate number of votes on the president's website, which was a corresponding petition, and i think that this issue will be resolved in the future in favor of the orthodox church of ukraine, because now we have no right to escalate this

issue, we see what is happening on the borders, putin is looking for any excuse to introduce troops, and therefore this question is not at the right time now, but in the future, i think that with god's help, god will create appropriate conditions and these lavras that belong to the ukrainian people they do not belong to the russian orthodox church, this is a temporary phenomenon. and over time, the government , since it is in the hands of the ukrainian state, will order that the whole of you will belong to the ukrainian church. the fact that the head of the orthodox church, metropolitan pythania, will perform the christmas service in the dormition cathedral of the lavra does not mean that the whole the lavra comes under the control of the orthodox church, the larger lower lavra is in perpetual use of the ukrainian orthodox church of the moscow patriarchate, monks live there and about their resettlement was not discussed and is not being discussed, it is only about the two churches in the upper part of the lavra, the refectory church, and the dormition cathedral itself, which have already been transferred to the use of the state, but

what will the state do with them, the question will be transferred to the permanent use of the church, will it somehow be divided between the two denominations, and how all this history will be reacted to by the priests of the church of the moscow patriarchate, who actually remain on the territory of the lavra, we will talk about this later, as well as about the not only religious, but also historical and political significance of the fact that the head of the church will perform religious service on the territory of the lavra, a radio expert, doctor of philosophy lyudmila filipovych joins the broadcast. good evening. when it became known that the epiphany will perform a divine service in the lavra, i saw even from my friends the desire of a large number of people to go to the lavra, despite the fact that these people are not necessarily believers, but some some of them refused to celebrate christmas at all on january 7 and said no, now only on december 25. and now they say well, now for christmas, the laurel and i understand that for many people this means not only a religious issue, but also another political one social and historical, what significance will this event

have? well, you already outlined everything in your foreword, emphasizing that for the first time in many years, the lavra will be a place where the ukrainian people will be able to celebrate such a great holiday as christmas. well, i do not refuse the lavra to celebrate this holiday, but let's right, conscious ukrainians have made a very important decision for themselves, in particular, it is connected with the change of jurisdiction, we know many parishioners, many parishes have moved from the moscow church, i mean the ukrainian of the orthodox church of the moscow patriarchate to the orthodox church of ukraine in that number we will see ukrainian nations who fully understand the relevance

of modern times, you correctly said the political relevance of this event well, let's look at the future and the future of our nation too, insomnia is connected with the great averages of our spiritual life, which are the lavra, and let me ask from a historical perspective how unique this event is from a historical point of view, when the last primate of an independent from moscow the ukrainian church held services in the lavra under various jurisdictions, well, for example, this applies to the pochaiv lavra, we know that it belonged to the kyiv metropolis for a certain time and then it came to the greek catholics, then the russians returned there again in the 46th year and this is connected

with those changes in the religious landscape that ukraine experienced very often, let's tell the truth , and now you and i are also witnesses of how the religious map of ukraine is being rebuilt, redrawn, reformatted, relatively recently, the ukrainian orthodox church - this is the largest, and according to all statistical data , 12.5 thousand parishes were registered under them. but let's say the data of the ministry of justice, where these organizations are recorded as legal entities. today, we number only about eight thousand, so that we are actually equal to the number of religious communities which are recorded by the orthodox church of ukraine, and this happened literally in the last 3-4 years, you know, this is a serious break, i don’t want to say that quantitative indicators

determine qualitative changes, but still, you know, it leads us a little to uh, so broad analyzes and broad comparisons, in particular with the fact that the dominant status of this monopoly, which was established and supported by the ukrainian orthodox church when it was the moscow patriarchate, is currently broken and it was broken on february 24, 2022. if this church does not understand that there will never be a return to the past, then how they lived these 30 years , and the place will remain on the territory of ukraine, which, by the way, the current director of the state service for foresters of conscience, viktor yelenskyi, told in his long-ago interview, in the meantime, i want to tell our viewers who we are is watching on the internet, we launched voting in the chat for the broadcast, who should perform the

christmas service in the lavra, metropolitan epiphanius, the abbot of the orthodox church of ukraine, or the vicar of the lavra, pavlo, a representative of the uoc mp, until recently pavlo was the main actor in the lavra well, actually , it remains because the brothers of the uoc mp seem to be there more than 200 people remain in the lavra , but it turns out that there are two churches, the church and the dormition cathedral, which the state has now regained ownership of for use. what may be the future fate of these churches or will be able to somehow coexist in them, or can they fix your vision of the situation on one or the other, especially since in our history you will solve these questions and you are right here, and you know by means of alternate use. but it seems to me that peace can be achieved and to achieve this alternation between the representatives of the ukrainian

greek-catholic church and the orthodox church is much easier for the ukrainian orthodox church and the orthodox church, and we understand why . because today they still act as irreconcilable opponents, you know this very well, it is so sad to state this. but we do not see from the side uoc of any steps that would testify to their awareness of the new reality in which they found themselves after february 24. well, i know that the head of the orthodox church of ukraine , metropolitan epiphany, has repeatedly stated that the doors of their church are open to all who wish and believers of the ukrainian orthodox church have freedom of will is freedom of choice, they can bypass the composition of this church, by the way. after february 24, about seven hundred people, that is, people in such a hot period, are

in the structure of the ukrainian orthodox church which positions itself very vaguely in these new conditions, it is better to still demonstrate its patriotic position and serve there and remember those who are real heroes and who are real leaders for the ukrainian people, maybe it will be divided between these two churches in addition to the ukrainian orthodox church, in addition to the orthodox church of ukraine, we also have other orthodox denominations, although they are not so numerous, which can also claim the right to use these churches. well, tell me the same greek-catholics who are aware of these and we associate them

with volodymyr the baptist because he is common to the ukrainian people for these two churches, the lavra was founded in the 12th century in the 13th year, they say that for volodymyr while he was alive well , the foundation uh, for today, they can have the right to it in ukraine, let's see in this situation and how the orthodox uh churches will come to an agreement among themselves, because today, after all, we count on what uh you know , the time will come when they will openly go to mutual understanding for the dialogue we are talking about

we are already talking about 30 years, and it will not start in any way. perhaps these new situations, new realities, i know will push people to make the right choices and the right conclusions, we are at the state of the question, mr. filipovich, today is the fourth anniversary of the tomos on autocephaly, how ukraine got history does not tolerate the conventional method but nevertheless, if ukraine approached today's events and the events of february 24, 2022 without a tomos, hmm, how would the situation regarding ukrainian forces, e.e., the ukrainian orthodox church, you know, would continue its monopolistic existence in the religious life of ukraine because tomo took a completely different configuration not only within ukrainian

orthodox education, but also let's tell the truth from whom orthodoxy came . tomos e-e was visualized, it acquired very such images, concrete images. today, the entire orthodox world is actually divided into those who support moscow and those who support the ecumenical patriarch, you even know it is scary to think that this event could not have happened four years ago, because it was not only our generation that dreamed about it, that is, this tomos was formed a long , long time ago, and we know that there were certain delegations until the historical conditions did not give the opportunity in 20 years to get this document

, this decree autocephalous existence of the ukrainian orthodox church, now this church, well, not everyone is playing with churches, but the process will continue without a doubt, it has stopped a little. this is in connection with covid and in connection with the full-scale aggression of russia but i think that the ukrainian church in such a situation will have even more authority among the orthodox churches, and the more it goes on, the more people will want to express their support for ukraine in this way, which must defeat the enemy. i mean putin's imperial russia, thank you very much for the comment lyudmila filipovych, religious scholar, doctor of philosophy , we talked about the service of the head of the ukrainian orthodox church of ukraine on the territory of the lavra , thank you very much

crimea's crimean methods are only a part of what, according to the reports of the sbu, was found in the churches and monasteries of the ukrainian orthodox church of the moscow patriarchate during the searches of the national security council . is there not, and if so, is it possible to stop the activity of this church in ukraine? answers to these questions about the activity of the uoc mp in ukraine were sought by taras levchenko ukrainian orthodox church with prefix moscow patriarchate or without prefix without and we are so registered both legally and canonically, and even more so after the council of may 27, 2002 , what decision was made, what is it about in the context of interaction with the russian orthodox church, about complete disassociation

from the moscow patriarchate? the wife moved into one room and the husband into the other, then they say, well, we separated, well, they didn't get a divorce, there was no court hearing that their marriage was dissolved, they submitted a new charter to the state on may 27 er, where are all the let's say so mentions of the moscow patriarchate have disappeared except for the mention in the preamble that they are based on the document of the 90th year that the totality of the diocese of the russian orthodox church in ukraine forms the ukrainian orthodox church, that is, roughly speaking, the correct name in general should be the russian orthodox church in ukraine, if i talk about the ukrainian orthodox church, it left a canonical connection with other local churches through the russian orthodox church in the fifth month of the

great war in our country and in the 9th month, patriarch kirill preaches religious nazism, and people cannot break away from it in reality and in every possible way simply hide this connection in moscow, about 30,000 religious organizations in ukraine, it is like a lawyer, investigative actions, criminal cases and counterintelligence activities are carried out in the ukrainian orthodox church in the brackets of the moscow patriarchate. why do you think that in in the case of religious organizations, the institute can talk about economic, organizational and financial ties, because we preach russian measures and the like, this is wrong, it's not like that, february 24, metropolitan onufriy commenting on russia's attack on ukraine, he said that this is a repentant sin, this is an analogy to brothers from the bible, russia and ukraine are brothers, you know , now i'll think about how you better answer , you know, to some extent, all people on earth are brothers to each other, because the first person to kill a person

was cain, that's why we don't speak politically here now, metropolitan onufriy said this repented sin, we are against the war, a letter was written to the official patriarch kirill putin, a letter of appeal from the local council was written, this is the image i would like to convey. may he inspire young soldiers who join на путь защитой отечества вы из patriarch kirill, i want to ask you the head of the russian orthodox church kirill blessed russia's attack on ukraine, there is such a video he is there with a gold one yes, of course, i remember this phrase very well when he blessed the icon by the way, the icon is very interesting e- it depicts the apparition of the mother of god to the russian troops and what is interesting is that they lost this particular battle. kirill. i know probably in the year 2002, kirill spoke in his time.

therefore, i am a witness that he would, in his opinion, give autocephaly to the ukrainian orthodox church . it would have to be given, he pushed everything on that, he says that patriarch oleksii doesn't want well, and then, hey, the patriarchal elections, he went, uh, without the blessing of metropolitan volodymyr, to yanukovych in mizhhirya, and there he consecrated the temple, in such cases, only the kremlin's bailiff changes , i took him on the leash is an organization, the russian orthodox church, its leadership preaches that ukrainians should be destroyed as ukrainians and we take, say, you know it's nothing. it's scary that this organization is represented by those moscow popes, bishops that we have. they give tires to some battalion or refugees are helped by absurd arguments, do you understand what they are? by the way, the state has levers of influence, this will not interfere with religious

life. when these people made their political choice as religious figures, they must pay for this political choice, and often the criminal choice is frank. they must bear their responsibility, and here it is 31 years. irresponsibility, except for some exceptions, but in latvia at the beginning of the war there was a moscow patriarchate, they passed a law where it was simply written that the moscow patriarchate on the territory of latvia should become independent autocephalous of the latvian orthodox church and when, accordingly, the state writes such laws, yes, it writes specifically clearly in our state, it is forbidden for religious organizations to have any connections with religious centers in the country of the aggressors, immediately, churchmen, another, yes, it is necessary to determine whether a bill can be adopted prohibition the church

whose center is located in the state of the aggressor is that we must say that it is the ukrainian orthodox church that we are talking about. it is impossible if i did, if we see that the head of the chernivtsi diocese has a russian passport, accordingly cancel its charter and then later terminate the lease agreements and everything to do with the collaborators in cassocks, send them there more comfortably for the structures of the moscow patriarchate in ukraine, he does not name any, said the new the head of the state service of ukraine for housing policy and freedom of conscience, viktoriya yalenskyi, meanwhile, the minister of the ukrainian orthodox church not only receives sanctions from the national security council, but also court sentences, the priest from lysychansk has been behind bars for 12 years, i quote the ukrainian special services leaked the positions of the armed

forces to the occupiers, later in the main intelligence office they reported that they gave mr. this to the russian federation during the exchange of prisoners, and this case was at the highest level , that is, according to the results of the synod in the ukrainian orthodox church, they did not comment. however, in the ninth month of the full-scale war , jokes were discussed 95 of the quarter saw their blasphemy and are ready to go to court, and while they are asking volodymyr zelenskyi to cancel the sanctions, they say there is no need to divide the ukrainian people, russian president vladimir putin instructed minister of defense sergei shoigu to introduce a ceasefire in honor of the celebration of christmas. this was announced in the kremlin, and this announcement was preceded by at least two events today. the first head of the russian orthodox church, patriarch kirill, who actually openly approves of russia's war against ukraine from the very beginning, suddenly called the parties for a

christmas truce today. the statement appeared on the website of the rpc. kyrylo proposed to establish a truce from noon on january 6 to midnight on the seventh so that, as he says, orthodox people could celebrate christmas and attend the christmas services in the office of the ukrainian president, they answered that the christmas truce proposed by kirill is a complete cynical trap, an element of propaganda , so in particular the adviser to the head of the president's office, mykhailo podalyak, reacted. well, the second event that preceded putin's cease- fire order was his conversation with the president of turkey the press service of the turkish president reports that even perdogan told putin that peace in ukraine should be supported by a unilateral cessation of hostilities. forced putin to issue a cease- fire order, and most importantly, will there be a cease-fire on christmas day? oleksandr

musienko , head of the center for military and legal studies, joins the broadcast. it is precisely this goal that is pursued that needs to be demonstrated once again that it seems that russia is seeking some kind of fake peace talks there, in fact that they are ready to uh and say about what ukraine sees i am not ready to sit down at the negotiating table and in this way it is absolutely related to this, it is not related to this. i think it is related to some religious things because the russian church can serve anyone but not god, this is understandable and accordingly if they want announce some kind of truce for ourselves, some unilateral action well, let them announce it for us. i think it won't have any consequences. well, actually there is a reaction from the president's office. podalyak said that russia should leave the occupied territories and only then can some kind of temporary truce begin and i i see that oleksiy danilov, the secretary of the nsdc, also

said that ukraine should not hold any negotiations with russia and the so-called cease-fire, as he said, there will be no negotiations. that is, this can already be considered as a negative response of ukraine. ukraine does not accept any cease-fire and hostilities will continue . i think that it is still worth it. of course, we will have to wait for the official position of the president of ukraine directly . they used to talk about a ceasefire and a ceasefire to the west , they threw these ideas, but what kind of ceasefire is putin today in a conversation with the turkish president, at least in the press release that the kremlin made public , he clearly said that they are ready for a ceasefire and peace talks if ukraine will come to terms with territorial losses at least, will come to terms with the fact that russia illegally annexed part of the ukrainian territory, which is

unacceptable, but it is clear that they are definitely not ready for such a truce, that is why the ukrainian reaction completely understandable and justified, withdraw the troops, stop the shelling, stop the missile terror, then we can talk about establishing a ceasefire. well, tell me, please. and why, then, is kirill , who is called one of the government officials of the kremlin , including, why, patriarch kirill? - a bright adept of war started these calls for a truce if russia is not very interested in it, well, this is such a hypocritical position to give. look, now the christmas holiday is coming, we are actually religious, humanistic in christian ideals, and so on. let's propose that this initiative does not come directly from putin, but rather, it seems, putin was asked by the church for this purpose, that is, they are playing out this scenario, and it is

absolutely like this, you know, in the typical chukov manner , everyone has their own role, everyone is in his place, according to his position, and they are acting out this scenario that it is as if the church has asked that people go to the temples and we are the same ones there or are crazy and so on, but it is all a lie in fact and they have turned it away. and what are you really waiting for christmas could have been and will be i think what hostilities will continue again, i think that ukraine will not go to this action , you understand, even if we theoretically assume that it was possible again. well, we only had armistice regimes and a cease-fire with russia within the framework of the minsk agreements how many times it was violated and russia constantly blamed ukraine. i am not even inclined to think that they would have lasted 36 hours this time. even if