Kyiv authorities staged judgment day for priests and believers of the UOC

Easter eggs did not soften the hearts of judges: Metropolitan Pavel remains under house arrest

The Ukrainian authorities are doing everything to spoil the Bright Week for the believers of the UOC – the festive week after Easter. Today, after the procession, the monks of the Kiev Caves Monastery could not get into their cells. The police, who arrived at the monastery in the morning, sealed off the monastic building. This time the locks were hung on building 44. Moreover, in the cells there were things and passports of the inhabitants, which now it is not clear how to take them out of the sealed premises.

When asked by the monks what will happen to their documents now, law enforcement officers in red berets only smirk. Apparently, they received a command not to stand on ceremony with the inhabitants and defenders of the Lavra. Today, a policeman even tried to attack one of the monks, but then suddenly changed his mind. “I hid my eyes, apparently, I felt ashamed,” they write in social networks.

Later, the police blocked the approaches to the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God “Life-Giving Spring”, where divine services were taking place today. Part of the believers was locked in the temple, the second – that did not have time to break into the cathedral, remained outside the gates. The clergymen had to give communion to the faithful through the fence: the prosvirki were pushed right through the bars and laid hands on the heads of the parishioners crowded on the other side of the gate.

Meanwhile, today in the Pechersk Court a decision is to be made on the measure of restraint for the activist, the defender of the Lavra, Victoria Kokhanovskaya, who yesterday, in an unconscious state by the arms and legs, the police threw into a car and taken to a pre-trial detention center, where she spent the night. This morning the defenders of the monastery came to the court to support their “leader”, but they were not allowed into the hall – without explanation. Kokhanovskaya is accused of hooliganism, for which she faces up to 5 years in prison.

There is also a student of the seminary in the pre-trial detention center, who filmed the lawlessness committed by the security forces in the Lavra yesterday on video. The last footage of his stream was captured as he was grabbed by the head. they push him into the car, and when he demands to call a lawyer, they take away his phone by force …

In the morning, the Kiev Court of Appeal refused the lawyers of the abbot of the Kiev Caves Monastery, Metropolitan Pavel, to satisfy the petition to change the preventive measure. The clergyman will remain under house arrest until May 30. After hearing the court’s decision, the elderly priest presented the judges and the prosecutor with Easter eggs. However, this is unlikely to save their souls …