What is POLITICO Pro? Policy areas Our Pro coverage Request a demo Contact us KYIV — Near the entrance to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, an 11th-century Orthodox cave monastery complex in the heart of the city, police stop every car for a brief check. The expulsions from the Lavra technically come as part of the termination of a 10-year-old agreement on the free use of religious buildings and other state-owned property that the monastery signed in 2013. “The church and the state leadership in Russia cooperated in the crime of aggression and shared the responsibility for the resulting crimes, like the shocking abduction of the Ukrainian children,” Bartholomew, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, said on March 22 during a conference the Lithuanian capital