The Metropolitan of Cherkasy and Kaniv of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, Denys Snihiryov, has been placed under round-the-clock house arrest for 60 days, Suspilne has reported.
An electronic bracelet, which will be used to monitor his whereabouts, will be put on him at a police station in Kyiv Region where the village he lives in is located.
He is suspected of inciting interfaith hatred and justifying, recognising as lawful, and denying Russia's armed aggression against Ukraine, and glorifying its participants.
According to the prosecutor, having headed the Cherkasy diocese, Snihiryov announced his decision to close the official website of the diocese at the end of August 2020 and create a new one based on the template of the Russian Orthodox Church.
The website was developed using Russian software to retransmit destructive content from pro-Kremlin online resources. Among them are patriarchia.ru and pravoslavie.ru, where Russian Orthodox Church propagandists justify Russia's armed aggression and Russian war crimes.
When asked by the judge whether he would plead guilty, the Metropolitan said that the investigation was "either mistaken or deliberately misleading everyone".
He also admitted that he had visited the Russian-occupied territory in 2017. It was in Horlivka and, in his words, it was a "peace mission".