Dnipro, Dnipropetrovsk Province, Ukraine, January 23, 2026
Photo: novosti.dn.ua
His Eminence Metropolitan Arseny of Svyatogorsk of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church will remain in pre-trial detention for another 60 days after a Dnipro court granted prosecutors’ motion to extend his detention until March 22.
The court denied the defense’s request to change the restraint measure and denied urgent hospitalization, reports the Information-Education Department of the UOC.
Met. Arseny participated in the hearings online, declaring his innocence and emphasizing his need for complex heart surgery.
On January 21, a medical professor from Kiev participated remotely in the court session, presenting an expert conclusion on the Svyatogorsk Lavra abbot’s health condition based on available diagnoses. According to him, the hierarch requires comprehensive examination in specialized clinics, inpatient treatment and subsequent rehabilitation, and the medications currently prescribed are not only not helping but are harming the Metropolitan’s health.
Ukrainian Orthodox believers came to the courtroom to support the Metropolitan. The Holy Dormition-Svyatogorsk Lavra calls on clergy and faithful to offer prayers for the imprisoned Met. Arseny.
The defense is preparing appeals, the report notes.
Background
Met. Arseny was initially detained on April 25, 2024, for mentioning a military checkpoint in a homily months prior, and held for nearly two years before being released on October 28, 2025, after his lawyers secured bail in the amount of 1.514 million hryvnias ($35,950). However, immediately upon exiting the detention facility, Security Service officers met the Metropolitan and presented him with new charges that had been issued three weeks earlier. He was eventually transferred back to the detention facility.
Doctors determined in late September that the hierarch urgently needs heart surgery.
Since the beginning of hostilities in eastern Ukraine, Met. Arseny regularly supported people affected by the conflict, with the Svyatogorsk Lavra serving as a shelter for thousands of people amid the war.
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