The court fined a key expert in the case of Metropolitan Theodosius of Cherkasy for failure to appear

The Sosnovskyy District Court of Cherkasy decided to fine a psycholinguistic expert whose findings formed the basis of the charges against Metropolitan of Cherkasy and Kanevsk Theodosius. The specialist systematically ignored court summonses, which led to procedural sanctions. This is reported by «Dozor» on «First Cossack».

During the court session, held on March 19, 2026, was to be interrogated expert Cherkassy branch of the Kyiv Research Institute of forensic examinations of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine Anna Stromilo. It was on the basis of her psycholinguistic conclusions concerning the bishop’s pre-war interviews with Ukrainian TV channels that the official accusation was formed. In these speeches, Metropolitan Theodosius publicly defended the rights of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).

The defense side emphasizes that the presented expert conclusions do not stand up to criticism and have previously been questioned in other courts, where similar materials were recognized as improper evidence. In connection with the repeated failure of the expert to appear in court, the defense raised the question of her possible liability for providing knowingly false conclusions and the presence of signs of bias in the case materials.

We shall remind you that earlier Metropolitan of Cherkassy and Kanev Feodosiy (Snigirev) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) made a statement on March 6, 2026, calling the forced mobilization of clergymen into the army «the most real genocide» against the UOC. The bishop expressed confidence that all crimes against the clergy will be given due legal assessment and the perpetrators will be held accountable.