Ukrainian police have forcibly removed monks and worshippers from a historic Orthodox monastery in the Kyiv region, dragging clergy including the abbot from the church doors as authorities seized the site to convert it into a state museum — in scenes that have shocked religious communities worldwide.
The eviction took place on 11 May 2026 at St Michael’s Monastery in Pereyaslav, an 18th-century site belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under Metropolitan Onufry. Video footage widely shared on X shows officers in tactical gear pushing through a crowd at the monastery gates, physically removing black-robed clergy and laypeople who had gathered to resist the seizure. Among those dragged away was the abbot, Archimandrite Antoniy. Some of the faithful were seen holding onto the gates as officers forced their way through.
The site is being transferred to the National Historical-Ethnographic Reserve “Pereyaslav,” with officials conducting an inventory of the property ahead of its planned operation as a museum. The action enforces a 2023 court ruling returning the state-owned historic property to the reserve — though a previous attempt to carry it out that same year was blocked when parishioners formed a human chain around the entrance. The monastery had been restored by UOC monks after falling into disrepair during the Soviet era, but its ownership has long been disputed on the grounds that the building constitutes national cultural heritage.
The seizure is the latest and most dramatic episode in a broader pattern of Ukrainian authorities reclaiming properties held by the UOC, which the government regards as insufficiently distanced from Russian influence despite the church’s own declarations of independence. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Ukrainian officials have moved against multiple UOC-held sites, citing national security concerns and the church’s historical ties to the Moscow Patriarchate. The government has also sought to promote the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which broke from Moscow and received independent recognition in 2019.
Supporters of the UOC have responded with fury, with Orthodox voices on X describing the scenes as Soviet-style religious persecution and drawing explicit comparisons to Bolshevik seizures of church property in the early twentieth century. The Union of Orthodox Journalists has been providing live coverage of developments. Critics of the UOC, however, frame the action as a legitimate reclamation of Ukrainian cultural assets from an institution they accuse of maintaining unacceptable links to an aggressor state during wartime.
The forceful images of elderly monks being pulled from the doors of their own sanctuary have cut through the legal and political arguments on both sides, provoking an outpouring of grief and anger among Orthodox Christians far beyond Ukraine’s borders. The situation in Pereyaslav remains fluid.
