A church trial will be held over a priest who admitted to being homosexual.

Bishop of the Samara and Syzran diocese, Metropolitan Sergius (Poletkin) instructed to conduct an ecclesiastical trial of Hieromonk Amphian (Vechelovsky), who confessed to being homosexual. The message of the diocese specifies that the priest has now been removed from the staff of the church organization.

On September 17, The Togliatti Room reported that Hieromonk Amphian (in the world Artem Vechelkovsky) openly declared himself a homosexual. The article cited his opinion about whether people with this orientation can serve in the church: “This is a difficult question, canonically not. Although I personally think that it is necessary to reconsider the Church's attitude towards homosexuality. Yes, I myself am gay, so it’s not for me to convict someone in this matter. ”

The next day, September 18, Artem Vechelkovsky said that he really spoke with the correspondent of the publication, but did not think that his words would be published. At the same time, according to him, while he taught at the Samara Seminary for 10 years, he did not hide his orientation. As Vechelkovsky said, both students and management knew about it.

The priest claims that he left the seminary in June after another denunciation by a student about harassment by a teacher. According to him, such denunciations were received against him throughout his career.

“I repeat: there was no coming out of the acting priest. I do not consider myself a priest and do not associate myself with the church. Today I am a completely private, unremarkable person, a citizen of our unfortunate country,” said Artem Vechelkovsky.