يكشف ضرب روسيا لمجمع الأديرة الأوكراني العريق عمره قرون عن يأسها المتزايد

The historic Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra was set ablaze this week, after it was struck by a Russian drone during a large-scale attack on the Ukrainian capital.

Monks, clergy, and rescuers rushed to carry out ancient and sacred items from the burning cathedral, which has served for centuries as a symbol of Ukrainian cultural identity.

This attack has been widely understood as a Russian attempt to eradicate Ukrainian identity, and target a site extremely spiritually important to Ukrainians. The cathedral was also damaged during a Russian attack earlier this year.

Russia’s ongoing targeting of Ukrainian heritage sites underscores its failures to make meaningful gains on the battle front. Targeting sites of religious and cultural importance suggests Russia is growing increasingly desperate to demoralise Ukrainian civilians and people of faith.

A site of Ukrainian heritage

The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra site is a source of Ukrainian ancient heritage, Orthodox influence, and a refuge for the faithful.

It was founded in 1051 by a monk named Anthony and his disciple Theodosius (both of whom went on to become saints) during the reign of Ukrainian leader Yaroslav the Wise.

The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is the oldest monastic complex of Kyivan Rus, the first East Slavic state.

The complex’s gradual expansion over the centuries was funded by various leaders of Kyivan Rus and beyond.

The construction of the Dormition Cathedral was completed in 1078, but the site was damaged several times during conquests in the region, such as the Golden Horde siege of Kyiv in the 13th century. This was when the city was attacked by a vast army of Mongol raiders.

A spectacular feature of the sacred Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra site is its vast underground network of caves (in fact, the word “pechersk” derives from the Ukrainian word pechery, which translates to “caves”) . The caves were a holy site of retreat for monks who lived and prayed at the monastery. The most worthy and devoted were buried there.

The site also holds many ancient religious texts, publications, woodwork, and iconography. Over centuries, monks and other people used this site as a base to spread Orthodox faith in the region, and it served as a place of holy refuge for the Orthodox monks.

Today, parts of the sacred site continue to be used as a consecrated space for religious practice, especially the Dormition Cathedral. Most importantly, for many Ukrainians the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra serves as a testament of Ukraine being descended from Kyivan Rus, not modern Russia.

While Ukraine and Russia have shared a common history at some point on the timeline, the Russian empire, the Soviet Union, and today’s Russia have made attempts to claim Kyivan Rus history as their own. But many Ukrainians see this monastery site as symbolising a rejection of that monolithic version of history.

A church split

My expertise and experience is in researching Ukrainian religious history. For me, the complex’s survival and being should be understood as a symbol of Ukrainian historical and current resistance against Russian oppression.

The rise of Russian Orthodox authority, Russian tsarist expansionism, and Russification policies all played a big role in Ukrainian oppression over centuries.

Constantinople, the centre of Orthodoxy, formally approved Russian authority over Ukrainian Orthodoxy in 1686. This was only overturned in 2019, after which a new Orthodox church in Ukraine gained formal independence from Moscow.

In other words, Russian control of Ukrainian religious identity went on for more than three centuries.

So it should be no surprise Russia is now targeting sites such as this cathedral. It is part of a longstanding effort on Russia’s part to eradicate Ukrainian religious identity.

Holy battleground

The last time the ancient monastery complex experienced vast ruin was in 1941, during occupation by Nazi Germany. At this time, it was destroyed by mines believed to be left by Soviet forces who were retreating from the Nazis.

The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra complex gained UNESCO World Heritage List status in 1990. Then, the Dormition Cathedral was rebuilt from 1998 to 2000 by the Ukrainian government.

From 1988, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra was used by the modern Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate on the basis of lease grants.

From 2009 onward (after a leadership change in the Russian Orthodox Church) , Russia began to explicitly tie religious politics to neo-imperialist state ideology. Russia’s occupation of parts of the Pechersk-Lavra site was about controlling Ukrainian self-determination and religious freedom.

But as of January 2023, all worship in the monastery has been conducted under the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (which split from Moscow in 2019) .

Targeting the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra this week was no coincidence. Russia’s Orthodox Church under the leadership of Patriarch Kirill has described the invasion of Ukraine as a “holy war”.

Yury Dolgoruky, Prince of Kyivan Russia and founder of Moscow, is said to be buried at this site. But even that did not deter Russia from attacking it.

The bombing of this sacred site demonstrates growing urgency on Russia’s part to erase Ukrainian history and identity.

Anastasiya Byesyedina does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.