For the Release of a Bishop Unjustly Imprisoned

The 62 year old diabetic Metropolitan Pavel of Vyshgorod and Chernobyl, Vicar of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, was moved indefinitely to prison on the 15^th of July. His bail was posted at the equivalent of around $900,000 USD - for reference, politicians accused of corruption in Ukraine had their bail set at the equivalent of around $30,000 USD recently.

Metropolitan Pavel is charged with violation of multiple articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, particularly "justifying the aggression of the Russian Federation". These accusations are made-up lies. Nobody who has followed Pavel's activities in any detail believes them. Metropolitan Pavel has said many times that he is a patriotic Ukrainian who condemns the invasion of Ukraine. He has blessed cars and medicine for the Armed Forces of Ukraine multiple times this year and in 2022. Pavel has been the head of Ukraine's most important monastery, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, since 1994, and a priest since 1988. In 1999, he was granted the Order of Merit of Ukraine (III). 

Many people are indignant at the way the sickly Metropolitan and patriot of Ukraine is being treated. I think it just to pray for his soonest release from prison and for the Ukrainian authorities to drop the unjust charges against him.

Metropolitan Pavel, who almost single-handedly revived the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra after Gorbachev transferred it to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in 1988, said in Court: “It's all not true. I have never been for the aggressor, I have never been for Putin." Before his arrest, he criticised Patriarch Kirill for not standing up for Ukrainians and said he supports Ukraine. 

Photo: Metropolitan Pavel in front of equipment he blessed for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, January 2023.