An 86-year-old priest will be tried in Kuban because of an article that mentions the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric station

A criminal case about “discrediting” the Russian army against 86-year-old Kuban theologian Viktor Pivovarov was received by the Slavyansk City Court of the Krasnodar Territory, OVD-Info noted .

The reason for the case (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code) was Pivovarov’s text “An answer to the question that worries everyone today: what is this war?”

“The exploded Kakhovka hydroelectric station claimed many lives and made almost the entire Kherson region barren by flooding. The creators of this supreme evil are completely like Satan in spirit. The devil moves into them and takes possession of them,” the priest wrote.

Pivovarov is a figure of non-canonical Orthodoxy, Archbishop of the South Russian and Slavic Russian Orthodox Church (RosOC).

The publication Kavkaz reported about the persecution of Brewers at the end of December. Realities." “Now I have not an administrative, but a criminal case for repeated violation. That's what the investigator said during interrogation. They promised to hold a trial in a couple of weeks,” the theologian said then.

In October 2023, security forces came to search his cell on the territory of the Holy Intercession and Tikhon Church in Slavyansk-on-Kuban. “I opened it, they abruptly took me inside, threw me to the ground, and tripped me. Face to the floor in an extremely aggressive manner. They burst in with machine guns, in camouflage, and balaclavas. SOBR. Straight into the temple with machine guns, like the military. They twist me on the floor, put their knee on my back, so that I’m suffocating,” said the archbishop’s assistant, Hieromonk Jonah. After the search, Pivovarov was taken away for interrogation.

In March, Pivovarov was fined 40 thousand rubles under an administrative protocol for “discrediting” the army because of his sermon (Part 1 of Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code). A denunciation of the priest was written by one of the parishioners who had not previously visited the temple. “He runs out and says as he goes: your sermon is political, and big problems await you,” the archbishop recalled.