Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 12/07/2023; Author: Maida Salkanović
The unsubstantiated allegations of the Russian intelligence service about the “agreement” between the Ukrainian authorities and the UN agencies to “take away” relics from the Kyiv church were presented as facts on some web portals.
On June 26, 2023, the web portal Russia Today Balkan published an article with the following title:
Kyiv and UNESCO want to steal the relics of Orthodox saints, Minister of Culture: They will not leave Ukraine
The article states:
Kyiv and UNESCO reached an agreement to seize the Christian relics located in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and transfer them to the West, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia announced today.
As stated, there are reports that the relics of the saints, which have been kept in this Orthodox sanctuary for centuries, would be transferred to the West. The holy relics would be transferred to museums in Italy, France, Germany and the Vatican.
Such actions by Kyiv and UNESCO would be carried out in the coming period under the pretext of “rescuing them from Russian rocket attacks2.
The article compared the alleged transfer of relics to museums in Western countries to the “secret export of Byzantine icons” from Ukraine.
The Russian service reported that the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Onufri, was told that the icons and relics from the Lavra would be moved to the West only temporarily, allegedly “until the situation in Ukraine returns to normal”.
However, Moscow reports today that these statements are not true and that behind these steps, in fact, is the intention that the holy relics will remain permanently in the West, something similar to what was the case with the secret export of Byzantine icons from Ukraine, which since June 14, are part of the exhibition in the French Louvre.
Claims about “taking away the relics” were also published by other media (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) and profiles and pages on social networks (1, 2, 3). In the title of the article on this topic, the web portal Sputnik Serbia singled out the Vatican as the destination where the relics from Ukraine will be sent.
Scandalous agreement: Relics from the Kyiv Lavra will be sent to the West – to the Vatican
The article states the following:
An agreement has been reached between Kyiv and UNESCO on sending Christian relics from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, including the relics of saints, to the West, announced the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergei Naryshkin.
According to him, it is planned to transfer them to the museums of Italy, France, Germany and the Vatican under the pretext of “rescuing them from Russian rocket attacks”.
Other web portals had similar titles in which the Vatican is singled out (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).
The IN4S web portal conducted an interview with the historian Aleksandar Stamatovic, featuring the headline describing “the transfer of holy relics from Ukraine to the Vatican” as a “symbolic genocide of the Orthodox Slavs”.
RT Balkan also published an additional analysis in which the “theft of Orthodox holy relics” from Ukraine is compared to “Bolshevik terror”, and the alleged action is attributed to “complete atheistic and metaphysical dullness and inability to see the essence of Orthodox holy things”. The alleged action is further compared to the “colonial confiscation of holy relics”.
What is it about?
On June 26, 2023, the official website of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation released a statement claiming that the Ukrainian authorities and UNESCO reached an agreement on the “removal of Christian treasures” from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra complex in Kyiv and their transfer to museums in Western countries. The announcement refers to the statements of the director of this service, Sergej Naryshkin.
To date, an inventory of church property has been completed, financial resources have been allocated for the transport of goods to Europe, and vehicles have been prepared, some of which are equipped with cooling devices. The head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Onufrije, was informed that the icons, relics and apparitions would be temporarily moved, allegedly for security reasons, until the situation in Ukraine normalizes.
Apart from the information provided by the Foreign Intelligence Service, the statement does not cite evidence or sources for the claims of an agreement between the Ukrainian authorities and UNESCO. Allegations from the announcement were reported by Russian-language media. The agency RIA Novosti published it in an article on June 26, 2023. Ukrainian Minister of Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko also commented on his Telegram channel and Twitter.
As the #Lavra becomes more and more Ukrainian, the more Russia rages. Our only current goal is to protect it from the Russian world and confirm the presence of all our holy Ukrainian relics. No sacred treasure will leave Ukraine, and everything stolen by Russia will have to be returned.
On June 27, 2023, the official Facebook page of the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Information Technologies shared a Telegram post of the Center for Strategic Communications under this ministry, in which it is stated that the claims about taking away the Ukrainian holy relics are fabricated. The ministry’s Facebook post was also shared on the official page of the Ukrainian National Commission for UNESCO.
The Russian agencies RIA Novosti and TASS also reported the statement of UNESCO’s spokesman Tom Mallard, in which he refuted claims that this UN agency is participating in some relocation of relics from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. According to RIA Novosti, Mallard said:
“UNESCO is not involved in this evacuation, so it cannot comment on this topic or confirm this fact”.
Incorrect claims that Ukraine and UNESCO are moving relics to the Vatican were also analyzed by our partner web portal Raskrinkavanje (.me) in a text published on July 5, 2023.
Ukrainian icons in the Louvre
Some articles also reported the comment of the Russian service that the relics from the Kyiv church complex will be moved permanently, as well as the Ukrainian icons that are exhibited in the Paris Louvre Museum.
Allegations that the “West” is secretly transferring art, including icons, from Ukraine were spread in Russian. They were analyzed by a fact-checking web portal StopFake in a text published on June 23, 2023.
Some Byzantine icons were evacuated from Ukraine, but in response to the threat of destruction. According to an article by Ukrainian Forbes, the Khanenko Museum was damaged in a Russian attack in October 2022, and the evacuation of Byzantine icons from the Museum was organized as a precaution in May 2023. StopFake states:
There is no question of any “theft” of Ukraine’s cultural heritage by the West. The Ministry of Culture of Ukraine assures that the icons will return home as soon as the situation allows. Moreover, the evacuation of Byzantine icons was a forced step. It is a fact that in October 2022, the historical building and interior decoration of the Khanenko Museum were damaged by a Russian rocket attack. Although the exhibits were moved into storage at the start of the war, temperature fluctuations caused by damage to the building and power outages due to constant Russian shelling of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure affected the artworks.
Five of the 16 evacuated icons are on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris at the exhibition “The Origin of Sacred Images”. According to the Deutsche Welle, the 11 remaining icons will be at the Louvre “until the situation improves”.
Thus, the claims of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service about the “agreement” between Ukraine and UNESCO to move the relics from the Kyiv church complex, along with allegations that it was theft, were reported in a number of media as facts, although there is no evidence of such an agreement. In the meantime, these allegations have been denied by several sources.
Accordingly, we consider the claims that the Ukrainian authorities and UNESCO agreed to move relics from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra to museums in Western countries as a manipulation of facts. These are allegations that did come from an official source, but they are unfounded and denied.
Note
On June 26, 2023, web portal Nula49 published an article with the claims evaluated in this analysis, and was subsequently included in the analysis.
July 28, 2023: After the publication of this analysis, Alo corrected the incorrect statements in its article, and it received the rating corrected.
August 2, 2023: After the publication of this analysis, the web portal Informer corrected the erroneous statements in its article, and it received the rating corrected.