The Orthodox Church of Ukraine appealed to the Director General of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra National Reserve Oleksandr Rudnyk to hold a funeral service for the fallen soldiers of the Brotherhood battalion in the Holy Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, according to an official letter signed by Archbishop Ahapiy of Vyshhorod, dated 6 March, which is available to LB.ua.
In particular, the letter states the request of the leadership of the A 3449 military unit to conduct a funeral service in the church on 7 March at 11:00.
Yesterday, the leader of the Brotherhood volunteer battalion, Dmytro Korchynskyy, said that Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko did not allow the funeral service for the battalion's fallen soldiers to be held at the Assumption Cathedral of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra.
The Ministry of Culture rejected this accusation, stating that the MCIP may not approve services in the church at the request of the religious community, however, as of 23:50 on 6 March, the MCIP had not received such an appeal.
"The MCIP may or may not approve the service in the church at the request of the religious community. As of 23:50 on 6 March, the MCIP had not received any appeals from the OCU or any other religious community. Accordingly, the MCIP did not provide any refusals or approvals," the statement said.
Instead, according to Korchynskyy, "the Orthodox Church of Ukraine came to the rescue" and organized a funeral service at St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral.
That was the funeral of four members of the Brotherhood sabotage group who died in late December 2022 on the border with Bryansk Region of Russia: Maksym Mykhaylov (Nepyypyva), Yuriy Horovets (Svyatosha), Taras Karpyuk (Tarasiy), and Bohdan Lyahov (Apollo).