Kiev is cracking down on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church for being pro-Russian and collaborating with Moscow, a charge the church denies.
A court in Ukraine’s capital has sentenced a top cleric to house arrest, according to his church, amid hearings on whether he glorified invading Russian troops and fomented religious division.
In a statement on Saturday, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) said the court in Kiev also ordered Metropolitan Pavlo to wear an electronic bracelet.
The Interfax Ukraine and Ukrinform news agencies said Pavlo had been placed under house arrest for 60 days.
‘I have done nothing. I believe this is a political order,” the cleric told reporters after the verdict.
The decision came as Kiev cracked down on the UOC for being pro-Russian and collaborating with Moscow, a charge the church denies. Earlier this week, Pavlo, the abbot of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Monastery, Ukraine’s most revered Orthodox site, cursed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and threatened him with damnation.
Prosecutors said the house arrest and electronic bracelet were precautionary measures, while prosecutor Yevhen Zavistovskyi said the case against Pavlo would continue.
Russia’s state news agency TASS said the court had ordered Pavlo to live in a village about 40 km southeast of Kiev.
Pavlo said the house was not fit for habitation.
“There is nothing to sleep on, no heating and no light. There is no kitchen, no spoon. But it’s okay, I’ll get through it all,” he said.
Pavlo lives in lodgings in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a 980-year-old monastic complex that the government says the church should abandon. TASS also said the court denied Pavlo permission to attend church services.
The UOC has insisted on being loyal to Ukraine and has denounced the Russian invasion. But Ukrainian security services say some in the church have maintained close ties with Moscow.
The agencies raided numerous Church holy sites, then 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.
Criminal cases have been opened against sixty-one UOC clerics since early 2022, seven of which have been found guilty.
The government had also ordered the monks of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavrato to leave the compound before March 29. She claims they violated their lease by making changes to the historic site and other technical violations. But the monks rejected the claim as a pretext.
Dozens of UOC supporters gathered outside the monastery on Saturday and sang hymns in the rain. A smaller group of protesters also showed up, accusing the other side of being sympathetic to Moscow.
“They wash the brains of people with Russian support, and they are very dangerous for Ukraine,” said Senia Kravchuk, a 38-year-old software developer from Kiev. “They sing songs in support of Russia, and it’s horrible, here, in the center of Kiev.”
Third-year seminary student David, 21, disagreed.
Dressed in priestly robes and with a Ukrainian flag draped around his shoulders, he told The Associated Press news agency that the Lavra priests and residents were in no way pro-Russian. The state, he said, was trying to evict hundreds of people from Lavra without a court order.
“Look at me. I’m in priestly clothes, with a Ukrainian flag and a cross around my neck. Can you say I’m pro-Russian?” said David, who declined to give his last name because of the tension surrounding the issue.
“The priests are currently singing a Ukrainian hymn and they are called pro-Russian. Can you believe it?”
Separately, Ukraine’s president said on Saturday that he had signed decrees imposing sanctions on more than 650 individuals and companies he says are “working for Russian aggression”.
Zelenskyy adviser Andriy Yermak said the list includes Russian state and local officials “as well as enterprises engaged in the maintenance, repair or production of military equipment”.