UN Secretary General Stephane Dujarric said that the UN stands firmly on the need to maintain freedom of religion. He said this during a briefing in response to a journalist’s question about the detention of Metropolitan Arseny, vicar of the Holy Assumption Svyatogorsk Lavra, RIA Novosti reported.

“We are firmly convinced of the freedom of religion”, – he said in response to the journalist’s request to comment on the detention of the vicar of the Svyatogorsk Lavra by the Ukrainian authorities.

Recall, earlier we reported that the hierarchs of the Local Orthodox Churches, which are members of the international Human Rights Alliance “Church against xenophobia and discrimination” made a public demand – to release from detention the vicar of the Holy Assumption Svyatogorsk Lavra Metropolitan Arseniy. The organization states that the arrest of Metropolitan Arseniy “is unjustified, unlawful and political in nature”.