According to the church, a leading Ukrainian clergyman from a church with purported Moscow links was sentenced to house imprisonment on Saturday following a trial into whether he lauded invading Russian soldiers and inflamed religious divides.

Kyiv is cracking down on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) on the grounds that it is pro-Russian and works with Moscow, something the church rejects.

The UOC added in a statement that a Kyiv court also ordered Metropolitan Pavlo to wear an electronic bracelet. Pavlo was placed under house arrest for 60 days, according to Interfax Ukraine and Ukrinform.

“I haven’t done anything. I believe this is a political order,” Pavlo told reporters after the ruling.

Prosecutors said the house arrest and electronic bracelet were precautionary measures and that the case against Pavlo would continue.

Tass news agency said the court ordered Pavlo to live in a village some 40 km (25 miles) southeast of Kyiv. Pavlo said the house was not fit for inhabitation.

“There is nothing to sleep on, no heat and no light. There is no kitchen, no spoon. But it’s okay, I’ll endure it all,” he said. Pavlo has been living in accommodation in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, a 980-year old monastery complex the government says the church must leave.

Tass also said the court had denied Pavlo permission to attend church services.

Pavlo’s court appearance came after he was questioned by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which presented the cleric with a series of accusations.

Sixty-one UOC clergy have had criminal cases opened against them since the start of 2022 with seven found guilty.

Pavlo, a senior UOC official, is the abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. The church has thus far refused to leave.

The UOC has been accused of maintaining links to the pro-invasion Russian Orthodox Church, which used to be its parent church but with which the UOC says it broke ties in May 2022.

The UOC is Ukraine’s second-largest church, though most Ukrainian Orthodox believers belong to a separate branch of the faith formed four years ago by uniting branches independent of Moscow’s authority.

Moscow said last month that Ukraine was “illegally attacking” the UOC, adding this confirmed the need for its military operations in Ukraine.