The Lord and the money

The disgraced founder of the Middle Ural Monastery Sergius was sent to the colony for 3.5 years

Today, the Izmailovsky District Court of Moscow found Nikolai Romanov (former father Sergius from the Central Ural Monastery) guilty of declining to suicide, arbitrariness and violation of the right to freedom of religion and sentenced him to imprisonment for three and a half years. The punishment of novels will serve in a general regime colony. Defenders of the disgraced clergyman do not agree with the sentence and will appeal him. They are sure that the criminal prosecution itself was the result of intra -church financial showdowns.

“I am convinced that, referring to law enforcement agencies with a statement about the initiation of a criminal case against Father Sergius, the Yekaterinburg diocese violated the foundations of the social concept of the Russian Orthodox Church, since it attracted the resolution of the intra -church dispute, which, including concerns the issues of the doctrine, law enforcement agencies,” the lawyer Pavel Babikov said during the debate in court. - The dispute with Father Sergius was to be decided exclusively inside the church without the involvement of law enforcement agencies. It is necessary to draw the attention of the court to the fact that the present, at first glance, is in reality a simple criminal case is extremely complex and precedent, since the court will be forced to understand the intricacies of church law and give a legal assessment of the actions of the priest.

Romanov’s lawyers previously stated that everything that was happening in the Central Ural Monastery has signs of raider seizure,

The basis of which is a serious church conflict, but more importantly - money.

“Almost immediately after the arrest of our client, we rated buildings on the territory of the monastery, and the cost of only the construct was one billion 90 million rubles,” said Lawyer Svetlana Gerasimova. - This is without interior decoration, just walls. It is important to understand that the Middle Ural Monastery is one of the five monasteries built by our principal.

According to the defenders of Nikolai Romanov, no one in the diocese was dealt with his sermons, while he regularly brought the income of a higher organization. As soon as the stream decreased, questions arose to the founder of the monastery. The intra -church confrontation resulted in the criminal prosecution of the founder of the Central Ural Monastery.

The disgraced father of Sergius in July last year was deprived of the dignity, and in December they detained. Immediately after the arrest of Nikolai Romanov, the Religious region Vadim Rosenfeld said that the former Schimon would be found guilty and go to places of imprisonment.

“The decision on whether a person will sit down or not is made on the eve of the arrest,” the religious scholar is sure. - According to Romanov, it was decided that he would sit and would not return to the Sredneuralsky monastery. Representatives of the authorities are well aware that Sergius is dangerous of their unpredictability.

According to Rosenfeld, Sergius Romanov is a harsh person, a convinced tsarebill, a good organizer and deeply “his”, church. There is no doubt that a person organized financial flows for many years and “correctly” directed them. Romanov built the Ganina Yama monastery, a huge number of pilgrims rushed there, the money was collected very large. After the transition of Sergius to the Middle Ural Monastery, the pilgrimage began to flourish there.

“It is difficult to calculate the exact amount of revenue,” says our interlocutor. - But the near -religious sales market is one of the most profitable businesses. In my opinion, its turns can be compared with oil and oil. This is a gigantic money. Within the framework of the popular monastery, Romanov sat on big money and redirected them to the right places. Money is power, so Romanov for a long time occupied one of the key places in the diocese. But to say that the conflict occurred exclusively due to money, I would not dare. It is frankly political and hierarchical, but it was precisely because of the schismatic behavior of Sergius and financial flows that threatened.

Vadim Rosenfeld is convinced that his statements against the Patriarch and personally against Putin played a large role in the disgrace of Sergius. And all this against the backdrop of a serious stripping of the religious field in Russia.

“The authorities drew attention to the things that she had been warned for decades, but does it in his own way, clumsy,” says Vadim Rosenfeld. - This is the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses ( prohibited in Russia. - Ed. ), The defeat of the Central Ural Convent. For many years, power was indifferent to religious communities, but today we are observing the cleaning of the religious field around the Russian Orthodox Church and, which is very important, inside the Russian Orthodox Church.

The police structure always acts the same. They don’t care about whom: individuals or religious. And they do this as they can: as many riot police, detention, searches ...

All this is an imitation of violent activity to disclose the so -called crimes. ”

The former sciences Sergius did not plead guilty to any of the episodes of the criminal case. Speaking about the causes of the conflict with the diocese, the science of Sergius Sergius several times noted that his words and sermons always arranged the local hierarchy. The true reason for the conflict is plans for the construction of the Church of St. Sophia on the territory of the monastery, designed for 37 thousand people. At first, Metropolitan Cyril agreed and blessed the construction. Then he set a condition - to build a stone temple worth $ 5 million 350 kilometers from Yekaterinburg. Father Sergius agreed to build a temple, but more modest, from glued beams.