The priest Gleb Yakunin died

Today, December 25, a human rights activist, a member of the Moscow Helsinki group, priest Gleb Yakunin, died in Moscow at the age of 80.

“Father Gleb died today after a serious illness,” Lev Ponomarev, the head of the Movement for Human Rights, told TASS .

Gleb Pavlovich Yakunin was born in 1934 in Moscow, graduated from the Irkutsk agricultural institute, in 1958–59 he studied at the Moscow Theological Seminary. In 1962 he was ordained a priest and sent to Zaraysk, and later to Dmitrov. In 1966, the church authorities were "until repentance - prohibited in the clergy."

In the 60-70s, Gleb Yakunin actively participated in human rights movement, and distributed information about the violation of the rights of believers in the USSR. In 1979 he was arrested, in 1980 he was convicted of anti -Soviet agitation, until 1985 he was serving a term in the Perm camp, then two and a half years of exile in Yakutia. In 1987, he was amnestied and restored in the dignity, served in the suburbs. Rehabilitated in the fall of 1991.

In 1990, Gleb Yakunin became the co -chair of the Democratic Russia movement, was elected People's Deputy of the RSFSR, a member of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR, Deputy Chairman of the Committee of the Armed Forces of the RSFSR for freedom of conscience.

In 1993, the Russian Orthodox Church imposed a ban on the participation of priests in the elections to the representatives of the representative and executive branch, Gleb Yakunin did not obey this decision, was elected deputy of the State Duma and was deprived of the priest’s dignity. In 1997, for the non -discovery of the Holy Principles, he was excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church.

In 1995, Gleb Yakunin organized the Public Committee for Protecting Freedom Conscience. In 2005, together with other participants in the Moscow Helsinki group, he wrote a letter to the pursuit of the political reasons for Russian citizens, including scientists Igor Sutyagin and Valentin Danilov, lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin, Zara Murtazalieva, entrepreneurs Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Plato Lebedev.