How the war has split the church in Ukraine

ARCHIMANDRITE PAUL used to be a racing-car mechanic, but in 1993 he found God, left his wife, and moved into a monastery in central Kyiv known as the Pechersk Lavra. The monastery, a centre of the Orthodox faith since the region became Christian in the 10th century, is famed for its caves, which pilgrims once thought stretched to Moscow. Ukraine’s security services, too, think it is linked to Moscow: they accuse the parish of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church which runs it of . On March 29th the government ordered the monks to leave. Since then believers have been staging a daily prayer vigil at the site’s gates. “The monastery is for monks, not for heathens,” the archimandrite fumes. “The devil is trying to scatter us.”