Metropolitan Pavel appeals his arrest

The lawyers of Metropolitan Pavlo of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate, the abbot of the Kyiv Cave Monastery, have filed an appeal against the court's decision to place him under house arrest.

This was reported by the press service of the UOC-MP monastery "Holy Dormition Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra" with reference to lawyer Mykyta Chekman.

The defense believes that when making its decision, the court ignored the basic principles of criminal proceedings: the competitiveness of the parties, the reasonableness of the terms, respect for the honor and dignity of the person, the right to defense and the presumption of innocence.

"We consider the court decision to be illegal and unfounded, and therefore the defense filed an appeal with the Kyiv Court of Appeal to exercise the right to judicial defense. We hope that the court of appeal will listen to the arguments of the defense and make a fair decision," the lawyer said.

As reported, on April 1, the Shevchenkivsky District Court of Kyiv imposed on Metropolitan Pavlo a measure of restraint in the form of round-the-clock house arrest for a period of 60 days.

The priest was notified of suspicion under Part 1 of Article 161 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (violation of equality of citizens based on their race, nationality, region, and religious beliefs) and Part 1 of Article 436-2 (justification, denial of Russian armed aggression against Ukraine, glorification of its participants).

The SBU also posted recordings of Lebed's conversations, which may indicate his anti-Ukrainian activities.

His house was searched. The SBU showed a photo of the priest's goldfish.

On the morning of March 31, priests of the Moscow Patriarchate again resisted the commission of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, which for the second day in a row has been trying to start the procedure for the transfer of cultural property of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra National Reserve.

Author - Serhii Kolomiets, 07/04/2023