Ukraine accuses Orthodox leader of condoning Russia’s invasion
Ukrainian security services have notified a senior Orthodox priest that he is suspected of justifying Russian aggression amid a bitter dispute over a famous Orthodox monastery.
Metropolitan Pavel, the abbot of Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Monastery, Ukraine’s most revered Orthodox site, was summoned for questioning on Saturday.
At a court hearing in the Ukrainian capital, the metropolitan strenuously rejected claims by Ukraine’s security service, known as the SBU, that he endorsed the invasion of Russia. Pavel described the allegations against him as politically driven.
SBU agents raided his home. Prosecutors asked the court to place him under house arrest pending the investigation.
The development came three days after a deadline for an eviction order from Ukrainian authorities for Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) monks living in part of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Monastery. The priest has strongly resisted the order of the authorities to evacuate the complex.
The UOC has been accused of having ties to Russia. The dispute over the estate, also known as the Monastery of the Caves, is part of a wider religious conflict that has run parallel to the war.
The Ukrainian government has cracked down on the UOC because of its historical ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader, Patriarch Kirill, supported Russian President Vladimir Putin in invading Ukraine.
The UOC has insisted on being loyal to Ukraine and has denounced the Russian invasion from the start. The Church declared its independence from Moscow.
But Ukrainian security services have claimed that some in the UOC have maintained close ties to Moscow. They raided numerous Church holy sites and later posted photographs of rubles, Russian passports and pamphlets with messages from the Moscow Patriarch as proof that some Church officials have been loyal to Russia.
The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Monastery is owned by the Ukrainian government and the agency overseeing it informed the monks that it was ending the lease and that they had until Wednesday to vacate the premises.
Metropolitan Pavel told worshipers on Wednesday that the monks would not leave pending the outcome of a lawsuit the UOC had filed in a Kiev court to stop the eviction.
The government has alleged that the monks violated their lease by making changes to the historic site and other technical violations. The monks rejected the claim as a pretext.
Many Orthodox communities in Ukraine cut their ties with the UOC and switched to the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which received recognition from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople more than four years ago.
Bartholomew I is considered first among equals among the leaders of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. Patriarch Kirill and most other Orthodox patriarchs have refused to accept his decision to authorize the second Ukrainian church.
Russia ‘steps up munitions production’
As Ukraine prepares for a counter-offensive expected in the coming months, Russian forces continue to push to take the city of Bakhmut. The Ukrainian stronghold in the eastern Donbas region has been at the center of a brutal battle that has dragged on for eight months in eastern Ukraine.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said during a Saturday visit to the military headquarters overseeing the action in Ukraine that Russia’s defense industry has ramped up munitions production “several times”. The Russian government previously acknowledged that there were ammunition shortages.
The British Defense Ministry said in its latest analysis on Saturday that the Russian offensive under the personal supervision of General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian army’s general staff, has failed. Putin put Gerasimov in charge of what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
“Gerasimov’s tenure has been marked by an attempt to launch a general winter offensive with the aim of extending Russian control over the entire Donbas region,” the British ministry said on Twitter. “Eighty days later, it is becoming increasingly clear that this project has failed.”
As proof, the ministry said that “on several axes on the front of the Donbas, the Russian armed forces have made only marginal gains at the cost of tens of thousands of casualties.”
With the losses, the Russian army wasted “largely its temporary personnel advantage” from a partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists ordered by Putin in the fall, according to the British analysis.
It noted that Gerasimov, who has had his job for 10 years, “is pushing the limits of how far Russia’s political leadership will tolerate failure.”