MOSCOW, February 25 (RAPSI) – Moscow’s Basmanny District Court on Thuesday granted an investigator’s motion and extended detention of excommunicated former schema monk Sergius (Nikolay Romanov) until May 28, the court’s press service told RAPSI.

Romanov is in detention now. He stands charged with inducing a minor to commit suicide. Earlier, Russia’s Children Ombudsman Anna Kuznetsova petitioned the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Investigative Committee to launch a probe into allegations of child abuse in a nunnery situated near town of Sredneuralsk in the Sverdlovsk Region, where the former schema monk took refuge.

Moreover, he is accused of violating a right to freedom of thought, conscience and and religionarbitrary behavior.

His Holiness the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill approved a decision of the church court of the Yekaterinburg eparchy to excommunicate schema monk Sergius (Romanov) on October 19.