Who will make peace between monks and botanists?
Recently the Editors received a group of scientists working at the National Botanical Gardens (NBG). They asked for help in preventing the imminent “destruction” of unique plant collections. The Monastery of the Holy Trinity and St. Jonah is expanding its work on the garden’s lands.
The problem is rooted in history. Pavlo Moroz, NBG Deputy Manager for Research states that the Monastery was built in the 1860s, not far from the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, or Monastery of the Caves. In the 1930s, the government destroyed the monastery and replaced it with the botanical gardens. About sixty percent of the garden’s land once belonged to the monastery. Over the years, NBG has won national recognition for its research efforts.
In March 2002, the president signed an order entitled, “On Urgent Measures to Finally Overcome the Negative Consequences of the USSR’s Totalitarian Policy.” It urges that steps be taken to restore expropriated property of churches and religious organizations. On the other hand, the laws on the protection of the environment and nature preserves, and on the specifics of the National Academy’s property does not provide for activities other than research in preserves such as the botanical gardens. So we have a legal conundrum, with one element of law contradicting another.
The scientists see the matter at issue as follows. In compliance with a resolution of the Academy of Sciences Presidium, of November 25, 1991, the Central Botanical Gardens transferred the churches of the Holy Trinity and St. Constantine to the Holy Trinity parish.
On June 13, 1994, the city state administration issued a directive legalizing the transfer. In other words, Pavlo Moroz explained, the matter focused on just the parish at first. In 1996, however, Metropolitan Volodymyr approved the establishment of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at 1 Timiryazevska Street, which is the address of the botanical garden . Neither NBG managers, nor the Academy of Science were aware of his action.
A parish was registered on Kikvidze Street In May 2001, Archimandrite Iona, who had been place in charge of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity and St. Jonah, addressed Boris Paton, President of the Academy of Sciences, requesting that the monastery be allocated some land, but the academy refused. Under rules approved by the government, such an allocation of real property possessed by organizations subordinated to the National Academy of Science is allowed only in exceptional circumstances.
Nevertheless, tensions surrounding this matter have noticeably escalated lately. The monks claim possession of the laboratory building, one of the few surviving monastic structures. It currently accommodates three research departments. According to Pavlo Moroz, the monastery’s economic endeavors are inflicting irreparable damage on the gardens’ unique collection. Construction waste is dumped on experimental plots and the scientists have lost a large number of rare trees. In addition, dozens of cars and trucks enter and exit the premises, violating traffic limitations. Such actions damage roads and trees. The monks erected a two-story brotherhood hostel, without permission from the architecture and construction state oversight committee, and dug a cellar in an area at risk for landslides. Trucks delivering construction materials damaged several meters of green hedge. Gardens staff must spend time collecting garbage left by thousands of parishioners, complains Nadiya Trofymenko, senior research fellow in the dendrology and park study department. The apple orchard, once the monastery’s graveyard, now includes memorial crosses. This work destroyed an Asian chokeberry, the only one of its kind in Ukraine. Last year, the ecology committee instructed the monastery to remove an unauthorized dump, forbade its use of gardens property, ordered it to dismantle a warehouse, then under construction, and restore the natural landscape. The monastery has ignored all the instructions.
Pavlo Moroz stated that botanical gardens are considered part of the public domain in all countries, meaning that they ought to be taken care of properly. The botanical gardens of Kyiv are included in the UNESCO network and the world association of botanical gardens.
Scientists have nothing against parishioners visiting the place, but all the monastery’s outbuildings should be removed from the gardens premises and placed outside. Academician Dmytro Hrodzynsky, secretary of the general biology department, stated bluntly, “A noble gesture made by the gardens management,” allowing the monastery to take free and unlimited possession of the plot, “may cause a misbalance in the botanical gardens. Of late, the aggressive policy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchy” which oversees the Monastery of the Holy Trinity and St. Jonah, “has known no bounds.”
The monastery, of course, has a different view. According to Archimandrite Iona, “It is a waste of time to think that if the monastery leaves and the parish stays, the problem will disappear.” He adds that the very idea of the reinstatement of the monastery as an illegal act is absurd, because the monastery existed there first.
He insists that the monastery offered several options to solve the problems, including the acquisition of the building they needed or the construction of a new one. However, the botanical gardens scientists state that they have never heard of the latter proposal. Monk-priest Superintendent Kliment says the building at issue has a great spiritual meaning for the monastery. Moreover, in the graveyard, according to legend, the founder of the monastery saw the Mother of God. Kliment adds that some of the broken gravestones were used to build flowerbeds, as evidenced by the so-called Cactus Hill. The monastery did not insist on restoring the graveyard, continues the monk-priest, and the brothers would be content with preserving what survived the barbaric destruction in the 1950s. The more important issue is keeping visitors away from holy ground. He calls construction waste, a temporary phenomenon to be tolerated for the duration of construction. Brother Kliment concludes, stating that there are no official documents showing that the monastery destroyed unique plants.
The archimandrite says that “One of the main conditions of EU membership is not to oppose transfers of church property.” All such property has been returned to the rightful owners in the Baltic states and Eastern European countries, and the government had always found solutions to problems, like paying rent for churches. In this particular case the monastery does not want to have that which is not its own. The issue revolves around a plot of some twelve acres, albeit located in the center of the botanical gardens.
Paradoxically, the law is on the side of both conflicting parties. Deciding in favor of either side would counter the universally accepted rule of protection of nature reserves and the rights of religious communities. The botanical gardens are backed by the National Academy of Science, which insists that such coexistence in a unique preserve boasting some 12,000 species and varieties, including 500 rare species, along with relics and endemics, is inadmissible. Thirty- six Members of Parliament support the scientists. Lawmakers forwarded a letter to Premier Viktor Yanukovych, requesting that he step in and prevent the monastery’s expansion. The monastery is backed by 25 other Members. One of them sent an official inquiry to the prosecutor’s office, asking that the botanists be made to explain why they had not complied with the presidential edict.
Lawyers will have the final say in the matter, primarily, experts working for the presidential administration and those under the Cabinet of Ministers. This case involves regulatory documents worked out by these bodies of the state.
