Pavlo Lebed, the abbot of the Kyiv Cave Monastery, is placed under house arrest

The Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv has placed the rector of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel Lebed (known as Pasha-Mercedes), under house arrest for two months, media reports say.

This measure of restraint was requested by the prosecutor's office.

The Metropolitan was ordered to wear an electronic bracelet and banned from recording his addresses to UOC (MP) parishioners on social media, as the prosecutor's office insisted.

Earlier, the court decided to forcibly bring him to the courtroom from the hospital, where he had been sent from the same court in the afternoon due to an alleged deterioration in his health.

As reported, the SBU searched the Metropolitan's house and served him with a notice of suspicion of inciting sectarian hatred and justifying Russian aggression against Ukraine.

The Metropolitan is suspected of justifying and denying Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine (Part 1 of Article 436-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) and discrimination against citizens based on their nationality and religious beliefs (Part 1 of Article 161 of the Criminal Code).

"It has been established that Lebed in his public speeches repeatedly insulted the religious feelings of Ukrainians, humiliated the views of other faiths and tried to form hostile attitudes towards them, and made statements justifying or denying the actions of the aggressor country," the SBU said in a statement.