Three priests were destined to live on prison bunks
The beginning of Holy Week was marked by the decision of the judge of the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv to change the preventive measure for the rector of the Holy Dormition Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel of Vyshgorod and Chernobyl . However, the joy turned out to be premature: on Wednesday the SBU took on the next metropolitan of the UOC.
Photo: frame from video.
Vladyka Pavel is now allowed not to wear an electronic bracelet. The international passport, however, was not returned to the metropolitan (in the world Peter Lebed), he still does not have the right to leave his home and plot of land without the permission of the court. The metropolitan is also obliged to appear for questioning at the first request of the court.
As MK previously reported, the prosecutor's office and the Security Service of Ukraine submitted an indictment against Ukrainian citizen Pyotr Lebed to the court. He is charged with “violating the equality of citizens depending on their religious beliefs.” Sanctions include up to 8 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property.
If Metropolitan Pavel has already gotten used to house arrest and deprivation of the possibility of personal communication with his flock, for Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye and Melitopol the troubles are just beginning. On the morning of May 1, Luka (in the world Andrei Kovalenko) was subjected to a humiliating search. The SBU officers promised to report details of the “investigative actions” later.
Previously, Metropolitan Luke did not restrain his emotions too much. So, the year before last, the hierarch of the UOC said that Ukrainians deserved the SVO, they supposedly “tolerate gay parades in Kyiv.” Regarding the current persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Luke noted: what was observed during the times of Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev, “in terms of its scale, is negligible when compared with today’s day in Ukraine.”
At the end of April Ukrainian authorities repressed Metropolitan Arseny, a native of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the current governor of the Svyatogorsk Lavra (Donetsk region). 55-year-old Igor Yakovenko (this is the real name and surname of Metropolitan Svyatogorsk), appointed 8 months ago also as vicar of the Kyiv Metropolis, according to the SBU, was engaged in “dissemination of information about the movement, movement or location of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, if it was possible to identify them on the ground.” The governor of the Svyatogorsk Lavra was taken into custody…