The court released Metropolitan Arseny of the Svyatohirsk Lavra of the UOC MP from custody and replaced the preventive measure with 24-hour house arrest until April 25. During this time, he will not have to wear an electronic bracelet.
This was reported in the Svyatohirsk Lavra.
SBU reported Arseny to the police on suspicion of spreading information about the location of Ukrainian troops in April 2024. At that time, he was taken into custody.
According to the investigation, Metropolitan Arseny "leaked" to the Russians the locations of the Defense Forces checkpoints in the Kramatorsk district of the Donetsk region. This happened during the liturgy. Then Arseny gave parishioners the addresses of the Ukrainian troops checkpoints in a video, and the video was later published on the Lavra website and in a local Telegram group.
SBU claims that in this way the cleric tried to covertly convey to the occupiers the locations of Ukrainian checkpoints. According to the investigation, the metropolitan, even before the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, expressed pro-Kremlin narratives about the war in Ukraine.
This is evidenced by his numerous interviews, in which he called the armed aggression of the Russian Federation a "civil conflict". He faces up to 8 years in prison.
In November 2025, SBU informed him of a second suspicion, of justifying Russian aggression. According to the investigation, in the spring of 2022, during the liturgy, he denied the involvement of Russians in the massive shelling of the Donetsk region, which damaged several churches and injured monks.
Investigators also claim that he justified the Russian armed aggression and spread disinformation about the Ukrainian military. For this, he faces an additional 8 years with confiscation of property.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.