MOSCOW. April 3 (Interfax) - A court in Kiev has placed Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra superior Metropolitan Pavel under two-month house arrest and has prohibited him from communicating with believers.
"Investigators have found that starting from February 24, 2022, Pyotr Lebed (Metropolitan Pavel) justified 'Russian aggression' in communication with monastery parishioners as the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra superior," a prosecutor said at a session of Kiev's Shevchenkovsky District Court on Saturday night. The metropolitan was forcibly brought to court from a hospital.
The prosecutor said that all conversations by Metropolitan Pavel had undergone linguistic analysis at the Ukrainian Justice Ministry. In addition to his house arrest, the prosecutor insisted that the metropolitan must wear an ankle bracelet.
The Ukrainian media said earlier that the Security Service of Ukraine charged the metropolitan with fueling inter-religious enmity. This includes his recent address to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky on the day the government terminated the Lavra rental agreement with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. "Our tears will drop on your heads," the metropolitan said at the time.