Trial of Metropolitan Arseniy to be held in Sloviansk

Metropolitan Arseniy is in the courthouse. Photo: the Sviatohirsk Lavra

On August 9 at 1:00 PM, a hearing will take place in the Sloviansk City District Court of the Donetsk region regarding the case of Metropolitan Arseniy (Yakovenko), the abbot of the Sviatohirsk Lavra.

The hearing was initially scheduled for August 8. However, the schedule was not coordinated with the defence, and since the lawyers were involved in other court cases on that day, they had to request that the hearing be postponed to August 9 at 1:00 PM.

Information about the hearing was published by the Council of Judges of Ukraine.

The previous court session was scheduled for July 9, during which the defence requested the recusal of the judge. Despite the intense heat in the courtroom, the judge did not allow Metropolitan Arseniy to leave the glass enclosure and sit next to his lawyer.

The two-month period of custody ended on June 22, but Metropolitan Arseniy was sent back to the Dnipro pre-trial detention centre as the issue of his detention has not yet been resolved.

As reported by the UOJ, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Verkhovna Rada, Dmytro Lubinets, ordered an investigation into the illegal detention of the abbot of the Sviatohirsk Lavra, Metropolitan Arseniy, in the pre-trial detention centre.

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