MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/. Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova has said she will appeal to the UN Human Rights Council to protect Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Rector Metropolitan Pavel in connection with his arrest in Ukraine.

"I consider such actions a blatant violation of the right to freedom of conscience and an insult to the feelings of hundreds of thousands of parishioners and ministers of the UOC. In this regard, I will appeal to the UN Human Rights Council with a request to protect the metropolitan," she said on Telegram.

Earlier, Kiev’s Solomensky District Court granted a petition of the Security Service of Ukraine to take the metropolitan into custody as a pre-trial restriction, instead of the previous restriction of a house arrest. The court set a bail of 33 million hryvnas (more than $900,000). According to the RBC-Ukraine news agency, the court ruled to arrest the metropolitan until August 14. The prosecutor's office had asked the court to remand him in custody until September 1 with a bail of 60 million hryvnas ($1.64 million). The metropolitan said at the start of the court hearing that there was a 99% chance that he would be arrested.

The government terminated the lease agreement for the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra with the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church and demanded that the monks leave the monastery. The UOC monks refused to comply with the illegal demands, and both sides took the matter to court.

On April 1, the Ukrainian security service charged the rector of the Lavra with inciting religious hatred and justifying Russia's actions. He was placed under house arrest for 60 days, a pre-trial restriction that was then extended. The metropolitan said that he had been approached by law enforcement officers with an offer to close the cases on the condition that he would no longer speak out against the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine and its head Epiphanius. On 13 July, the security service accused the rector of a repeated violation of religious equality of citizens and justification of the actions of the Russian Federation, and requested that the metropolitan be taken into in custody.