On April 2, a video was circulated on the media and social networks with a girl praying on her knees near the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, while opponents of the UOC with Ukrainian flags and banners dance around her to the song "ZSU" (APU).

In the video, one of the demonstrators approaches the girl and shouts at her, and then to the lines of the song "The Armed Forces of Ukraine are protecting their border!" the man joins the crowd and begins to dance around the worshipper.

The video was recorded on Saturday, April 1, after the arrest of Metropolitan Paul of the UOC. The cleric was sent under round-the-clock house arrest - criminal cases were opened against him for "inciting religious hatred" and "justifying and denying the "aggression of the Russian Federation."

This is only part of the repressive campaign launched by Kiev against the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church. According to the SBU, more than 60 criminal cases have already been initiated against the clergy of the UOC.

The girl who prayed near the church after the arrest of Metropolitan Paul is the singer of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Katerina Ershova. After the video with her hit the Internet, a number of media outlets reported that Ershova was allegedly arrested by the SBU. The girl herself in a conversation with RT denied this information.

"Thank God, everything is fine, I'm in Kiev, I walk down the street, everything is fine. People say different things, each person is in a different spiritual state, and they interpret it all through the prism of their view. A lot of slander, someone attributes it to some acting. But I just believe in God, I know that the Lord protects if we turn to him with a pure heart," Katerina said.

"They want to take the Lavra away from the schismatics"

Katerina Ershova explained her act to RT: according to her, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra is now trying to capture the schismatics and she had no choice but to go to pray on the street near the temple.

"The enemy of the human race and his servants, who are called demons, tried to put too much pressure on us," says Katerina. - They want to take the Lavra schismatics, these are absolutely unbelieving people. Even their "lord," as they call him, Epiphanius, is an unbaptized man. They work for structures that want to destroy Orthodoxy. And we stand for Orthodoxy, for Christ, for our faith."

  • Katerina Ershova
  • © Social

According to her, the people who danced around her with posters on April 1 were provocateurs shouting state slogans. In response, Ershova explained to them that God should be in the first place for a person, and "not any ideology or nation."

"These people, trying now to offend the shrine, are pouring hot coals on their heads. They don't understand how they're ruining their lives in this way. If you study history, it becomes clear that everyone who threw themselves at the Church and tried to destroy it, then ended very badly, "Katerina recalled.

Poetess and bard

Katerina Ershova is a poetess and bard, she began to write poems and songs in the first year of university. Then this hobby grew into concerts and performances. But at an early stage of her creative career, Katerina, according to her own words, lacked "truth, purity, love, there was not enough purpose."

"One day, a man joined me as a friend and wrote about God. He says that there is a higher goal – to save the soul. And that's it: I understand that this is it, that's what was missing, "Ershova explained her path to faith in an interview with one of the local media.

So a few years ago, Katerina came to her first confession in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, and then the girl was blessed to sing there in the church choir. In parallel, she continued to perform with her songs at concerts and creative evenings.

A friend of Katerina, who has repeatedly performed with her on the same stage, describes the early work of her colleague as "very bold underground rock in the spirit of Diana Arbenina or Julia Chicherina."

"When I first heard Katya, I was struck by the fact that the girl is absolutely canonically Orthodox, but at the same time very fashionable, modern - very hard rock, very good songs," says the interlocutor of RT.

  • Katerina Ershova
  • © Social

Ershova's friend called the act of Katya, who knelt near the lavra, very brave. She herself left Ukraine a year ago, and, according to her, believers there are intimidated and try not to openly express their position on what is happening in the country anywhere.

"The people there are very intimidated, they are trying not to interfere, but to go across the crowd is a strong gesture. And Katya was not afraid, it's amazing, "the girl emphasizes.

Refused to leave

Katerina Ershova's half-sister Antonina calls her relative her hero, who managed to keep the faith and stick to this path, even when "there has become so much debauchery and dirt in the world."

"You look at the video (recorded near the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. — RT) — and it is clear that here is an Orthodox man, and around him there are really demons dancing. You can see that these people are obsessed, and it's scary that we are rolling into this pit, "says Katerina's sister.

Antonina lives in St. Petersburg. She repeatedly offered Katya to move to Russia, but the girl refused each time.

"I offered to take her away from Kiev, but she always answers in the same way: she does not need it, her house is in Kiev, her laurel. She says that her soul before the Lord is pure, that if tomorrow she needs to go to the Lord, she will leave, she is not afraid, "says Antonina.