Looking for some interesting things to do as a family while in Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine, we decided to look into “the caves” that we read about on the internet.  It sounded interesting, and I have to admit that I had visions of dark caverns, dripping water, stalactites, and fluttering bats.  

  Arriving at the Kiev Pecherska Lavra, however, we were in for a surprise.  The “caves” that we entered along with our guide and a large group of other pilgrims, were actually an intricate labyrinth of tombs that religious monks had dug out many centuries before to use for solitude and humiliation.  Now, their ancient, mummified bodies lay encased in glass inside indentations along the passageways surrounded by burning candles and icons and draped in ornate cloth.  Only the eerie, leathery remains of their hands can be seen reaching out from underneath these elaborate decorations.  

  As we ducked through the tunnels with the crowds of people, we watched in amazement as person after person knelt before the relics and literally kissed the glass as the guide urged them, “You may pause here and worship the remains of...” and then she would name the saintly monk who happened to grace that particular crevice in these Ukrainian catacombs.  

  It was not a place for the weak of stomach, or the claustrophobic, or, in fact, for little children, and we discerned by the muffled whimpering sounds that were starting to come from our children that it was time to make a quick exit.  As we made our way, with some difficulty through the crowds of people lining the walls and waiting to receive spiritual blessing from these mummified inhabitants, we were stuck by the irony of this scene.  At that moment, I truly don’t think it would have been a shock to have suddenly heard the chiding voice of an angel echoing through those dark hallways as it once did in another tomb, “Why?  Why seek ye the living among the dead?  He is not here!” (Luke 24:5-6)  

  Has Biblical Christianity for some truly degenerated into nothing more than a pagan form of heathen ancestor worship?  Such scenes as we witnessed in the Pecherska Lavra of Kiev would have been expected in the spiritual darkness of Hindu India, or in the burial grounds of native American tribes, or on the mountains of Buddhist Tibet, but among people that call themselves Christians?  God forbid!

  Our children didn’t need us to explain this truth to them.  Their questions showed them to be wiser in their young innocence than thousands who think of themselves as mature.  “Why were all those people praying to the dead bodies?  Do they really think those dead people can hear them?   Don’t they know that we should only pray to God and worship Him?  Isn’t that the same as worshipping idols?”

  It was a special moment of reconfirming the truth of God’s Word to our children.  The Word of God is plain to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear: “There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 2:5)  May all those who are true Christians call upon Him alone and pray to Him alone for help and salvation!  And let us thank Him and praise Him that our hope is in an eternally living Savior and not in the dead relics of mortal man.  As we worship, let us worship in the way that Jesus said we should - “in spirit and in truth!”