evidence: Crowds of visitors have packed the dozens of services at Kyiv’s Monastery of the Caves in Ukraine in recent days to receive sacraments, pray and kiss holy relics of saints in the catacombs — fearing each visit will be their last chance to worship with monks before either the Ukrainian government or a rival church takes over one of the most sacred sites in Eastern Orthodoxy. [...] The monastery, founded in 1051 and called the Pechersk Lavra, holds special significance for Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox Christians, who trace their Slavic Christian roots to a mass baptism in 10th-century Kyiv. Today the complex includes historic churches, relics and icons, catacombs, a state museum filled with medieval chronicles and other artifacts, as well as the UOC’s main theological academy with its own museum and residential buildings.