Under the rink - Archpriest

Russia returns during the repressive policy of state

“Before the mundial, our law enforcement agencies carry out comprehensive work with the population,” the Gatchinsky Archpriest Alexy Lebedev summed up the results of a special operation, which was carried out early on the morning of June 9 by employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB in his apartment, as well as in the apartments of his parents and parents of his wife.

The operation was spectacular: the operatives were accompanied by the riot police detachments in full equipment. Father Alexy does not belong to the Moscow Patriarchate, but to the "alternative" Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (RPAC). By this, he explains the scope with which “investigative actions” were carried out.

A 47-year-old archpriest was seized from a computer’s hard drive and phones, and his youngest son, 20-year-old Fedor, was detained and taken to the 78th police department of St. Petersburg. With the eldest son, 23-year-old Ivan, who serves in the army, the connection was lost on the eve of the searches. A formal reason for investigative actions, according to law enforcement officers, was the suspicion of sons of hooliganism, but the FSB officers really asked Fr. Alexy is not about that.

“They were interested in my ties with the Cossacks, trips abroad, attitude to the Russian Orthodox Church, church affiliation,” says Archpriest.

After spending almost a day in the police, Fedor was released home on June 10 on a recognizance not to leave. He was charged with a crime under Art. 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("hooliganism"). According to investigators, Fedor participated in some conflict on Nevsky Prospekt in August last year. The police department with Fedor openly “worked” by the FSB officers, who even presented a certificate. “They talked about patriotism that good people should help each other,” the father reports the story of his son.

Meanwhile, there was also the eldest son Ivan - a military musician, suddenly transferred to St. Petersburg from a military unit in Moscow. The circumstances of its translation also cause a lot of questions.

“At the headquarters of military-space forces in Moscow (and he served in the military unit at the headquarters),” says Fr. Alexy,-the request for the transfer of the musician from the orchestra to the unit in St. Petersburg receives. Reason: the creation of an orchestra there and its completion. An officer from St. Petersburg military person comes to Moscow to support a military man. Some operatives in civilian clothes are brought in a service car. On the same car, a soldier is transported to a new part. The unit commander meets him, asks why they transferred, is very surprised that in the "orchestra". He says that there are amateur performances in the club, there is no orchestra. ”

Comparing this story with the searches and the detention of the youngest son, Fr. Alexy "even more strengthened in the opinion that all the latest events passed from the presentation of some rank from the FSB, who suggested that he could pull the thread and reveal the" extremist "or" terrorist "cell."

While the search was at about. Alexy, another operational group, also accompanied by riot police in complete ammunition, advanced to the private house of 77-year-old parents of the Archpriest and took up positions for the maneuver. The cluster of riot police was the first to discover the mother of Fr. Alexy, who early in the morning went out to make goats. Having got into the house, law enforcement officers dispersed around the premises.

One of them, grabbing the gun, burst into the room where the father of the Archpriest was sleeping, and, poking a weapon in a blanket, began to shout: "Grandfather, get dressed!"

But the veteran showed moral resistance and even expressed the desire of fair popular retaliation for such “law enforcement officers”. While the operatives were letting the old man, the FSB officer asked the Archpriest's mother about his work, activity and trips.

To the parents of the wife about. Alexy came without riot police - only operatives in civilian clothes. As a result of a long search, nothing was removed, but they stopped their attention on two things: the Tolg icon of the Mother of God in a large black kyot and souvenir silicon in the closet. The icon was tapped in search of a cache, and a cylinder was taken as a container for explosives. They were extremely disappointed, not finding either one or the other.

Archpriest RPAC is convinced that what is happening is an attempt to “persuade” by pressure on children and parents. An old tested method, also known by recruitment instructions of the OGPU.

Journalist by profession, former observer "Gudka", about. Since the beginning of the 2000s, Alexy has served the rector of the St. Petersburg community of the RPAC. Her temple was located on the ground floor of a two -story mansion of the Center for Orthodox Education on Goncharny Street, near the Moscow Station. In 2014, at the suit of the prosecutor's office, the court liquidated the “schismatic” center, the authorities sealed the mansion, and while it stands without any signs of life. But at about. Alexy did not drop his hands - on a private site in Gatchina, he built a wooden temple and began registration of the community.

Despite the fact that this community is included in the centralized religious organization registered and officially recognized by the state - RPAC, rector and parishioners already 8 times (!) Refused registration. At first, as usual, they found incorrectly set commas in the constituent documents, then - the unspecified time of the end of the Constituent Assembly.

Finally, they decided to send documents for a state religious examination to the Ministry of Justice, although according to the law, such a procedure applies only to the newly registered centralized religious organizations or to the local, not part of the centralized ones. From the point of view of the law, the fact of entering the community into an already registered centralized organization is a sufficient guarantee of reliability.

All defendants in the searches in Gatchina June 9 are members of the community led by Fr. Alexy, and the legal address of the community is the house of the parents of Archpriest. The parishioners are set up for their registration, without which now in Russia they can not carry out religious activities. They applied to the RF IC with a statement on the crime of officials of the Ministry of Justice, artificially delaying the registration of the community and depriving citizens of the legal right for freedom of religion. Apparently, this determination annoys the jealousy of the “only canonical” church of the Moscow Patriarchate in civilian clothes.

A few days before the events described, the investigators of the SK and the FSB arrived with searches in another Orthodox parish in the Leningrad Region, not belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate, in the temple of the Virgin Protection in the village of Dudachkino, whose rector serves about. Alexander Sukhov (in monasticism - Joseph). It belongs to one of the branches of the Russian foreign church, which did not accept the unification of the main part of the ROCZ hierarchy with the Moscow Patriarchate in 2007.

A criminal case has been instituted against the priest under Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“extremism”), and its church is the official website of the Investigative Committee of the SKR quite “churching” - “non -canonical pseudo -Orthodox association of a destructive sense”.

The rink of repressions for religious beliefs in modern Russia is taking place not only for “sectarians-extremists” such as Jehovah's Witnesses (prohibited in Russia).

Orthodox are increasingly subjected to repression - it is worth doubting them in the truth and non -alternativeness of the Moscow Patriarchate. In Kaliningrad, the hegumen Nikolai (Mamaev), the cleric of the ROCZ (B-B), has been serving for almost a year, and in the spring of 2016, just on Easter, the bailiffs demolished the monastery complex of the IPC near Penza, not stopping in front of all its crosses, golden couples and bells. The same RPAC is subjected to systematic persecution, from which in 2009 all 11 historical temples restored by it in Suzdal, where the spiritual center of this church is selected, and in 2015, the relics of saints, in the temples and monasteries of which for two years have been regularly looking for “extremist literature” for two years. By and large, Russia returned during the repressive policy of Gosataism, only state -made is now called “spiritual scrapers” and sometimes acts on behalf of “four traditional religions”.