At a preparatory hearing on 10 September 2025 the Sloviansk City District Court of the Donetsk Region, in a ruling in case No. 243/4706/24, granted a defence motion filed under Article 206 of the Criminal Procedure Code. It ordered Dnipro Penal Institution No. 4, where Metropolitan Arseniy was held in custody, and Multi-Profile Hospital No. 4 — a branch of the Health Care Centre of the State Criminal and Executive Service — together with their officials, to carry out a medical examination of the Metropolitan without delay and to provide the treatment prescribed as a result of it.
The ruling states that the court separately ordered the hospital’s head to arrange a forensic medical examination, and that the prosecutor considered the motion well founded as regards the need for treatment and did not object. The measure of restraint — custody in Penal Institution No. 4 — was left unchanged. Suspilne Donbas, in its report of 14 September 2025, recalled that the Metropolitan had been in custody since April 2024.
In the same hearing the court refused the defence’s motion to return the indictment to the prosecutor. The operative part of the second ruling says there are no grounds for it; the defence held, according to the first ruling and Suspilne Donbas, that the indictment does not meet the requirements of criminal procedure law. Both rulings state that they cannot be appealed.
The Svyatogirsk Holy Dormition Lavra, whose superior is Metropolitan Arseniy, reported on its website that, because the hearing went ahead without all his lawyers, the defence declared a recusal of the presiding judge. Suspilne Donbas, which quoted that statement, added that the hearing was due to continue on 18 September. In the ruling itself the court did not agree with the accused’s statement that considering the motion in the absence of two of his lawyers violated his right to defence: other defence lawyers were present at the hearing.
Sources: ruling No. 130117891, Unified State Register of Court Decisions (YouControl copy), 10 September 2025; ruling No. 130117883 (operative part), the same register (YouControl copy), 10 September 2025; Svyatogirsk Holy Dormition Lavra, 11 September 2025; Suspilne Donbas, 14 September 2025.
