KYIV, Ukraine — KYIV, Ukraine (AP) —

A Kyiv court docket ordered a number one priest to be put beneath home arrest Saturday after Ukraine’s high safety company stated he was suspected of justifying Russian agression, a legal offense. It was the most recent transfer in a bitter dispute over a famed Orthodox monastery.

Metropolitan Pavel, the abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, Ukraine’s most revered Orthodox web site, has denied the costs and resisted the authorities’ order to vacate the complicated.

After the court docket’s ruling, a monitoring bracelet was positioned round his ankle, regardless of his objections that he has diabetes and shouldn’t put on it.

“I’m accepting this,” he stated shortly earlier than the bracelet was connected. “Christ was crucified on the cross, so why shouldn’t I settle for this?”

In a court docket listening to earlier within the day, the metropolitan stated the declare by the Safety Service of Ukraine, often called the SBU, that he condoned Russia’s invasion was politically pushed.

“I’ve by no means been on the facet of aggression,” Pavel informed reporters within the courthouse. “That is my land.”

Earlier within the week, he cursed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, threatening him with damnation.

SBU brokers raided the metropolitcan’s residence, and prosecutors requested the court docket to place him beneath home arrest pending the investigation. The listening to Saturday was adjourned till Monday after the metropolitan stated he was feeling unwell.

The monks within the monastery belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has been accused of getting hyperlinks to Russia. The dispute surrounding the property, often known as the Monastery of the Caves, is a part of a wider non secular battle that has unfolded in parallel with the warfare.

The Ukrainian authorities has cracked down on the UOC over its historic ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, whose chief, Patriarch Kirill, has supported Russian President Vladimir Putin within the invasion of Ukraine.

The UOC has insisted that it’s loyal to Ukraine and has denounced the Russian invasion from the beginning. However Ukrainian safety businesses say some within the church have maintained shut ties with Moscow. The businesses have raided quite a few holy websites of the church after which posted photographs of rubles, Russian passports, and leaflets with messages from the Moscow patriarch as proof that some church officers have been loyal to Russia.

The federal government had ordered the monks to depart the compound by March 29. It claims they violated their lease by making alterations to the historic web site, and different technical infractions. The monks rejected the declare as a pretext.

Dozens of UOC supporters gathered outdoors the monastery on Saturday, singing hymns within the rain. A smaller group of protesters additionally turned up, accusing the opposite facet of sympathizing with Moscow.

“They wash the brains of individuals with Russian assist, and they’re very harmful for Ukraine,” stated Senia Kravchuk, a 38-year-old software program developer from Kyiv. “They sing songs in assist of Russia, and that’s horrible, right here, within the heart of Kyiv.”

Third-year seminary pupil David, 21, disagreed. Wearing a priest’s robes and with a Ukrainian flag draped spherical his shoulders, he insisted the Lavra monks and residents have been under no circumstances pro-Russian. The state, he stated, was making an attempt to evict a whole bunch of individuals from Lavra with no court docket order.

“Take a look at me. I’m in priest’s garments, with a Ukrainian flag and a cross round my neck. May you say that I’m pro-Russian?” stated David, who declined to provide his final identify due to the tensions surrounding the problem. “The monks are presently singing a Ukrainian hymn, and so they’re being referred to as pro-Russian. Are you able to imagine it?”

Many Orthodox communities in Ukraine have minimize their ties with the UOC and transitioned to the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which greater than 4 years in the past acquired recognition from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

Bartholomew I is taken into account the primary amongst equals among the many leaders of the Japanese Orthodox church buildings. Patriarch Kirill and most different Orthodox patriarchs have refused to simply accept his determination authorizing the second Ukrainian church.

In different information Saturday, Zelenskyy condemned the U.N. Safety Council for permitting Russia to imagine its presidency. The council’s 15 members every function president for a month, on a rotating foundation.

Zelenskyy stated Russian artillery had killed a 5-month-old boy within the city of Avdiivka on Friday, “one among a whole bunch of artillery assaults” every day, and added that Russia presiding over the Safety Council “proves the entire chapter of such establishments.”

Two civilians have been reported killed in Russian shelling on Saturday, one every within the Kherson and Kharkiv areas, Ukrainian authorities there stated.

Zelenskyy additionally stated he spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday concerning the battlefield state of affairs and protection cooperation.

Whereas Ukraine is getting ready for a counteroffensive anticipated later this spring, Russian forces have saved urgent their effort to seize the town of Bakhmut. The Ukrainian stronghold within the Donbas area in Ukraine’s east has been the main focus of a ferocious battle that has dragged on for eight months.

Russian Protection Minister Sergei Shoigu stated throughout a Saturday go to to the army headquarters overseeing the motion in Ukraine that Russia’s protection industries have boosted manufacturing of ammunition “by a number of instances.” Russian’s authorities beforehand acknowledged ammunition shortages.

The U.Ok. Protection Ministry stated in its newest evaluation Saturday that the Russian offensive personally overseen by Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Normal Workers of the Russian army, has fizzled.

“Gerasimov’s tenure has been characterised by an effort to launch a normal winter offensive with the purpose of extending Russian management over the entire of the Donbas area,” the British ministry stated on Twitter. “Eighty days on, it’s more and more obvious that this challenge has failed.”

The ministry stated that alongside the Donbas entrance, “Russian forces have made solely marginal good points at the price of tens of hundreds of casualties.” It was “largely squandering its momentary benefit in personnel” from a partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists Putin ordered within the fall, the U.Ok. evaluation stated.

The U.Ok. International and Commonwealth Workplace, in the meantime, mocked a brand new version of Moscow’s overseas coverage doctrine printed Friday that described the Russian coverage as “peaceable, open, predictable, constant, pragmatic and based mostly on respect for universally acknowledged rules and norms of worldwide regulation.”

“April Idiot’s Day is TOMORROW,” the International Workplace tweeted late Friday. ___

Related Press author Elena Becatoros in Kyiv contributed to this report.

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Comply with AP’s protection of the warfare in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine