ORENBURG, October 4. /TASS/. The Orenburg Regional Court has upheld the arrest of priest Nikolai Stremsky, accused of rape, a TASS correspondent reported from the courtroom.

"The Court hereby upholds the Leninsky District Court’s ruling and rejects an appeal filed by the defense," a judge said.

The defense attorneys of Nikolai Stremsky, the rector of the Holy Trinity Convent in Orenburg, earlier filed an appeal against the ruling Leninsky District Court made on September 25. Attorney Yuri Omelichkin told reporters that Stremsky needed medical treatment due to poor health. "The defense believes that it will be impossible to provide appropriate medical treatment to him at a pre-trial detention facility," the attorney pointed out.

Stremsky is charged under three articles of the Russian Criminal Code, among them raping an underage girl, sexual abuse of two and more minors and dereliction of duty in bringing up children. His daughter and her husband are also defendants in the case. All three have been taken into custody. According to investigators, Stremsky repeatedly molested six of his adopted underage girls between January and August of 2018 and raped one of them.

The Holy Trinity Convent of Mercy was founded in 1990 in the Orenburg Region’s settlement of Saraktash nestled in Russia’s Urals. The convent has a Sunday school, a house of charity for lonely and infirm, elderly people. The family of Nikolai Stremsky adopted children from orphanages, bringing up more than 70 adopted minors. An Orthodox secondary school and a religious school are functioning at the convent. A sisterhood and a community of monks were set up there. The convent also has a sewing workshop, a bakery and a small farm.