Vicegerent of Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Says Ukrainian Authorities Sent Him Under House Arrest

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st April, 2023) Metropolitan Bishop Pavel, viceregent of the contested Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, said Saturday that the Ukrainian authorities had sent him under house arrest.

Earlier in the day, he was presented with official suspicions of "collaboration with Russia and inter-religious incitement" after Ukrainian authorities conducted searches in his house.

"I was sentenced to house arrest," metropolitan Pavel told parishioners, as quoted by Ukrainian news outlet Vesti.ua, noting that he still "needs to sign a protocol," without giving additional details.

Meanwhile, the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) said that the authorities were to choose a preventive measure for metropolitan Pavel only after an interrogation, which was initially scheduled for 09:00 GMT.

Tension between Kiev and the UOC escalated after Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. On March 10, 2023, UOC monks were ordered to leave the monastery of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, jurisdiction over which was divided between a Ukrainian cultural organization and the UOC, by March 29 for violating the terms of an agreement on the use of state property. Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said the monks could stay in the Lavra if they joined the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), a decision that may be "stimulated through the joint work of specialists and law enforcement officers."

The OCU was established in 2018 as an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church whose canonical territory is Ukraine. The Russian Orthodox Church considers the OCU to be non-canonical.