Ukraine cleric accused of glorifying Russia invasion give house arrest - church

Pavlo has been living in accommodation in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a 980-year old monastery complex the government says the church must leave. Pavlo's court appearance came after he was questioned by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which presented the cleric with a series of accusations.

A top Ukrainian cleric from a church with alleged Moscow ties was sentenced to house arrest on Saturday after a hearing into whether he glorified invading Russian forces and stoked religious divisions, the church said.

Kyiv is cracking down on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) on the grounds it is pro-Russian and collaborating with Moscow, a charge the church denies. In a statement, the UOC said a court in Kyiv had also ordered Metropolitan Pavlo to wear an electronic bracelet. The Interfax Ukraine and Ukrinform news agencies said Pavlo had been given 60 days of house arrest.

"I haven't done anything. I believe this is a political order," Pavlo told reporters after the ruling, complaining his house was not fit for inhabitation. "There is nothing to sleep on, no heat and no light. There is no kitchen, no spoon. But it's okay, I'll endure it all," he said. Pavlo has been living in accommodation in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a 980-year old monastery complex the government says the church must leave.

Pavlo's court appearance came after he was questioned by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which presented the cleric with a series of accusations. It was not immediately clear whether the investigation against Pavlo would continue.

Sixty-one UOC clergy have had criminal cases opened against them since the start of 2022, according to the SBU. Of the seven found guilty, two have been traded for Ukrainian prisoners of war in prisoner swaps with Russia, the SBU said. Pavlo, a senior UOC official, is the abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. The church has thus far refused to leave.

The UOC has been accused of maintaining links to the pro-invasion Russian Orthodox Church, which used to be its parent church but with which the UOC says it broke ties in May 2022. The UOC is Ukraine's second-largest church, though most Ukrainian Orthodox believers belong to a separate branch of the faith, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, formed four years ago by uniting branches independent of Moscow's authority.

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