The Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications has released an official explanation for the dismissal of the director general of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra National Reserve, Maksym Ostapenko. The reason given was ‘improper fulfilment of the terms of the contract and violations in the activities of the reserve’.
‘The decision was made on the basis of a memo from Volodymyr Shornikov, Director of the Department for the Protection and Preservation of Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine,’ the official statement reads. The reprimand was based on the report of the Working Group of the Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine, established to study the current state of accounting, use and preservation of state property under the operational management of the reserve. The working group also checked compliance with the boundaries and regimes of use of the territory and buffer zone of the cultural heritage site."
In a commentary to LB.ua, Maksym Ostapenko noted that he had not personally seen the memo referred to in the ministry's statement. "The dismissal order that I was shown did not have the minister's signature, but there was a reference to a memo that I had not even seen. The order was shown to me outside of working hours: at eight in the evening, Volodymyr Shornikov came to my house and asked me to come out for an urgent meeting. He showed me the order for my dismissal right on the bonnet of the car, and his colleague filmed it all on his phone, saying that I had been read the order. And I wasn't even wearing glasses, because I had just left the house for a minute. And the very next morning, Shornikov came to the staff of the reserve to inform them of his dismissal. I am now consulting with a lawyer about this inappropriate treatment, which, frankly, really felt like something out of a 1990s gangster movie."
Updated. The Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications Mykola Tochytskyy posted on his Facebook page that the Assumption Cathedral in Kaniv was officially handed over to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine today.
"The church where the Ukrainian community bid farewell to Taras Shevchenko 164 years ago is finally part of Ukraine’s spiritual space, having freed itself from the parasitic grip of Moscow’s clergy," he stated.
The minister added that the dismissal of the director general of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra National Reserve, Ostapenko, is a response to the weak position in the implementation of this law.
"The fact that there should be no Moscow spirit in the Lavra should have been the point of greatest effort for the head of the reserve. However, with the assistance of the Ministry to transfer the churches to the OCU, the result of the year of his work is not adequate to the national security challenges faced by Ukrainian society," Tochytskyy added.
"Moscow priests desecrated the Lavra, making it a place of trade in faith and consumer goods. Unfortunately, the real changes that were expected to free the Lavra from the entrepreneurial spirit of the Moscow church have not taken place. The country has no time to wait for the illegal trade, illegal rent, uncontrolled stay of Moscow monks and further destruction of monuments to stop," the head of the Ministry of Culture stressed.