Dnipro, Dnipropetrovsk Province, Ukraine, December 1, 2025
Photo: svlavra.church.ua
The health condition of His Eminence Metropolitan Arseny of Svyatogorsk of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church continued to worsen during a court hearing on November 28, with the persecuted hierarch requiring emergency medical assistance in the courtroom as Ukrainian authorities maintain his detention and deny him necessary cardiac surgery.
The hearing took place at the Sobor District Court in Dnipro regarding the second criminal case against the abbot of the Holy Dormition-Svyatogorsk Lavra. The session was convened to consider the defense’s motion to recuse the investigator. According to the monastery’s press service, the proceedings were marked by serious violations of the defense’s procedural rights, reports the Union of Orthodox Journalists.
Prior to the court session, the investigator had organized the Metropolitan’s forced transport from the detention facility for familiarization with case materials. However, Metropolitan Arseny refused to review the materials without his attorneys present and demanded to be taken directly to the court hearing instead. The hearing began with significant delays. This time, the court permitted all of Metropolitan Arseny’s attorneys to participate in the proceedings. Faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church came to the courtroom to support the Lavra’s abbot.
Met. Arseny’s blood pressure spiked during the hearing, requiring paramedics to provide emergency medical care. At the request of his attorneys, the judge postponed the session until today.
Medical specialists determined in late September that Metropolitan Arseny urgently requires heart surgery. During examinations on September 30, he was seen by a cardiologist and an arrhythmologist at a hospital in Dnipro, where the arrhythmologist concluded that cardiac surgery is necessary.
The Metropolitan was arrested on April 25, 2024, on charges of allegedly revealing Ukrainian army positions through a September 2023 homily mentioning a roadblock preventing pilgrims from reaching the monastery. The video was published days after the roadblock had been removed. After being released from pre-trial detention in late October following a year and a half in custody, Security Service officers immediately arrested Met. Arseny again on new charges of denying Russian armed aggression and accusing the Ukrainian army of causing the death of a cleric and a nun.
During a court hearing on November 3, Met. Arseny again became seriously ill and had to be taken by ambulance. Medical personnel recorded his blood pressure at 200 over 110—indicating hypertensive crisis—yet he was released as supposedly healthy. The Metropolitan recalled that at the hospital, a doctor was threatened with dismissal if he admitted the hierarch for overnight observation.
On November 1, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine and 85 hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church appealed to President Zelensky for Met. Arseny’s release, emphasizing his poor health and noting that since 2014, Svyatogorsk Lavra under his leadership has sheltered thousands of Ukrainians displaced by war.
The Svyatogorsk Lavra brotherhood has requested intensified prayers for Metropolitan Arseny. His Eminence Metropolitan Isaac of Germany and Central Europe of the Antiochian Orthodox Patriarchate has also spoken out in defense of the persecuted UOC hierarch.
Follow OrthoChristian on Facebook, Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, and MeWe!
