Translated material
Illegally baptized
The family wants to achieve criminal prosecution of the ministers of the church who baptized their children without the knowledge of their parents.
Anastasia and Konstantin Krylov is irrelevant. “We do not go to church, we educate children according to secular traditions,” the parents of eight -year -old Olya and six -year -old Andrei say. But the grandmother, Elena Ilyinichna, had been talking for many months about the need to crown the spouses and the baptism of their children, to which the Krylovs were in a categorical refusal. At some point, Anastasia and Konstantin thought that Elena Ilyinichna agreed with them: they agreed not to affect the topic of faith, and a truce came in the family. It just did not last long.
Placed the fact
One of the June days, Krylov left children and grandmother and left for work. Unexpected news awaited them at home: Elena Ilyinichna brought Olya and Andrei to the temple of the Annunciation on Primorsky Prospekt, where she became their godfather. As it turned out later, the grandmother did not demand a passport, birth certificates, nor data about the parents of minor children. “We were simply confronted with a fact,” says Anastasia, “my mother handed me a baptism certificate with a satisfied look and said that the children will finally have a guardian angel.”
According to lawyer Yevgeny Moiseev, to whom the Krylovs turned to, when grandmothers secretly baptize grandchildren from their parents, they are quite common. But usually this is a family conflict and such cases are not advertised.
The Krylovs demanded a copy of the record of the ceremony from the temple minister, but received a refusal. Parents asked if the godfather can appoint herself such an appointment and what rights she has in relation to her godson. “The priest said that the church is not interested in legal issues and he no longer wants to communicate on this topic,” says Anastasia.
Then the parents wrote an official letter to the rector of the temple with a request to comment on the situation in which they referred to the definition of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church: “The baptism of children is committed in the church by the faith of their parents and recipients” in addition, preliminary “announcing conversations with the parents and receivers of children” who explain the significance of baptism and the Orthodox faith. In the case of the Krylov family, all these norms were not met.
Temple of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary // Photo: Panoramio.com
In addition, Anastasia and Konstantin sent a statement to the prosecutor’s office, referring to violation of parental rights, as well as the ban on the involvement of minors in the activities of religious organizations without the consent of parents. According to lawyer Moiseev, the prosecutors began a pre -investigation check under Art. 201 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (abuse of authority) in relation to the ministers of the temple. “Given our legal culture and legal awareness of officials of the police and judicial systems, I don’t really expect that a criminal case can be instituted,” the lawyer admitted.
The incident is exhausted?
The "new" could not catch the priest in the temple, who baptized the children of the wing. Another church minister to the request to explain whether it is possible to baptize children without the consent of the parents, answered concisely: “Google.” And then he added: "Laws - even church - is just a formality that sometimes obey, and sometimes not."
After the intervention of the editorial office and investigators with Krylov, the rector of the temple, Father Fedor Guryak, who agreed that the actions of the priest did not meet the law, and apologized to the family.
“We hope that the conflict will be exhausted for this,” Natalya Rodomanova, head of the press service of the St. Petersburg Metropolis, commented on the “new” head of the press service of the St. Petersburg Metropolitan. - Of course, it is impossible to perform the sacrament of baptism in this way, and the priest must bear punishment. The grandmother of Krylov children is a parishioner of the temple, everyone knows her there and could not refuse. There is a violation, but we believe that the Krylov family and representatives of the temple will come to the consensus. ”
But for the wing, according to them, the story is not finished. According to the results of the pre -investigation audit, the spouses expect to receive written confirmation of the committed baptism from representatives of the temple, after which they intend to go to court. They hope that they will be able to attract public attention to existing problems in the Russian church system.
Anna Kotanova