Translated material
ROC (b)
Patriarch Kirill issued new decrees on the punishment of anti -war -minded priests. But the more such decrees, the less their canonical weight
Photo: Christina Kormilitsyna / Kommersant
"Spiritual death occurs ..."
“The priest Dmitry Safronov is prohibited in the clergy for a period of three years without the right to teach blessings, wearing a cassock and a priestly cross” - the next repressive decree of Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev) appeared on April 23 on the website of the Moscow City Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church.
We are talking about the clergy of the Church of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Lyshchikova Gora in the center of Moscow, near the Taganka. This priest got into the media space recently, when he served a couple of a chip on the grave of Alexei Navalny in the Borisov cemetery. The relevant personnel posted the publication “Sota Vision”* - it is assumed that the same Panichid was removed by the same Antonina Favorskaya, who arrested the Basmanny Court on suspicion of “participation in the extremist community” on March 29.
In this context - the first version that comes to mind: about. Demetrius was punished for sympathy for Navalny and a prayer for him. In a panachid, he, in particular, said: “Alexey asked us not to give up. These are very correct words not only in the physical sense, but also in the spiritual. Because when I give up my hands, spiritual death occurs. ” Many media even mixed up about. Dimitri Safronova and the priest, who buried Navalny on March 1 in the temple “Srown my sadness” in Maryino. In fact, the funeral service was performed, as the “new”, “duty” priest of the temple Andrei Malevich said , and from the sanction of the patriarchy. And now, the Patriarchate of Patriarchate did not authorize the panachid on the grave of the martyr Alexei.
The patriarch violates the rules
But these are not the only possible reasons for the ban on the 40-year-old priest from the temple on Lyshchikova Gora. The text of the patriarchal decree itself is given by the wide scope for various kinds of assumptions, where neither the reason for the punishment or the canons are clarified, on the basis of which the transformation is superimposed.
The Regulation on the practice of prohibition of clergy in the ministry approved by the ROC Synod in 2014 says: “When applying punishment in the form of prohibition in the form of priesthood in the corresponding decree, the cause of the prohibition, church-legal substantiation (reference to canes or other church and legal sources).” The fact that the Patriarch violates these conditions makes his decree canonically and legally insignificant. But in the current rigidly authoritarian system of the Russian Orthodox Church, hardly anyone dares not to fulfill even an openly voluntarist decree if it is lowered from the very top.
And a young priest with three children, who obeyed God more than people (Acts 5:29), will go, according to this decree, to perform the duties of the psalmist to the temple of the Monk Pimen at the Novoslobodskaya metro. According to parishioners, the average “salary” of the psalmist in the Moscow temple today is 15–20 thousand rubles a month, in most cases, ordinary parishioners are reading on the choir without any reward.
Forbidden about. Demetrius, the Patriarch violated not only the patriarchy situation on the practice of prohibition of clergy in the service. In the ancient 25th Apostolic rule, to which the Patriarch and other Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church refer when they punish anti-tuned priests, the ancient biblical principle is mentioned: “Do not rejoice twice by one” (corresponds to the principle of Roman law non bis in idem (“there is no double [punishment] for the same thing”); it is also contained in Art. RF).
For an unnamed canonical crime, the priest Dmitry Safronov was subjected to four punishments at once: a ban on the ministry, the ban on the right to wear a priestly cross, the ban on the right to wear a cassock and a ban on teaching blessings. The practice of such prohibitions that humiliate the dignity of prohibitions is widespread in the Russian Orthodox Church, although it contradicts common sense: if the punished cleric still remains a priest, then a cassock with a pectoral cross is his official form.
Blessed are gracious ...
Unfortunately, about. Demetrius is not yet available for comments, but his friend in the seminary (where they studied in the early 2000s) told the “new” that the true cause of the ban was the same notorious “patriarchal prayer for Holy Russia” , that is, about the “victory” of the RF Armed Forces over Ukraine. In connection with the refusal to read this text, dozens of priests and deacons, including the famous Moscow shepherd Fr. Alexy Uminsky ( “New” told about his case in detail). For many priests, the wording of this prayer, included in his context, turned out to be unacceptable: “Give us your victory by force.”
Instead of one patriarchal prayer about. Demetrius began to read another - also a patriarchal, but consecrated by the authority of the canonized saint - Patriarch Tikhon (unlike him, the prospects for the canonization of Patriarch Kirill have not yet been visible). By the way, in the prayer of St. Tikhon is also quite “patriotic” formulations: “Right up and strengthen everyone, the essence is in power ... by the power of your cross, strengthen our Christ -loving army and deliver from all kinds of rims of enemy.” But - "not supposed"!
It is necessary to obey the now resilient Patriarch, and not the deceased, albeit a saint!
The priest Demetrius Safronov was called several times to the patriarchy, where they tried to "exhort". As a result, information about him disappeared even from the parish site of the temple on Lyshchikova Gora, where he served since 2006. True, separate photographs of Fr. Demetrius can still be found in albums on this site .
They say that the young priest has been a pencil in the Patriarchate since the summer of 2019, when his signature appeared under the appeal of the priests of the Russian Orthodox Church in defense of young people, the defendants in Moscow business.
O. Dimitri was not a public figure. He led a blog on Facebook **, but there are very few posts. The userpic decorates the pigeon of the world with a laurel branch, among friends - also punished by the Russian Orthodox Church for the anti -war position, priest Andrei Cordochkin and Fedor Lyudogovsky. A lot of good family photographs with children, nature, cottage. After February 24, 2022 Demetrius actively helped refugees from Ukraine. In February 2023, he shared his friends with his friends with which the refugee family met him, living in unimaginable conditions in the hostel near Moscow. The priest brought them an old refrigerator ...
You can't strangle this song, you won’t kill
On the eve of the main Christian holiday - Easter - the head of the Russian Orthodox Church issued a series of decrees on the prohibition in the service of clergy of Moscow without indicating the reasons. It will seem strange to someone, but in the third year of his more and more priests ceases to be shy of his anti-war position. Among the newly prohibited are the inhabitant of the Vysoko Petrovsky Monastery Hieromonk Augustine (Monastyrev) and the cleric of the Temple "Life -Giving Source" in Bibirev, Priest Andrei Kudrin. The latter is known as a friend about. John Koval - the first metropolitan cleric, "deprived of the dignity" by Patriarch Kirill a year ago for refusing to read the "Prayer for Victory." Patriarch Bartholomew, Constantinople and the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate recognized such a “deprivation of a dignity” without canonical power - and today Fr. John serves in Antalya at the parish of the Constantinople Church.
At the same time, in the Dmitrov near Moscow, the priest Alexander Vostrodymov was banned in the ministry - there, however, "with the indication of articles." Father supported Fr. Alexy Uminsky and performed on a popular Orthodox channel with the denunciation of “propaganda ***”. The trend spread to the Vologda diocese, where in the Cathedral of the Spaso-Prilutsk monastery on April 20, Hieromonk Tikhon (Sokolovsky) came up with a sermon, who recalled (contrary to the Patriarchal of March 27: “For a Christian, the highest value and meaning of life is not at all the Russian tradition, not the shrine of Russian civilization, and not the Great Russian Civilization and not the Great Russian Instead of all this, we choose the service of the Lord Jesus Christ ... This is a voluntary martyrdom for the fulfillment of Christ commandments, and not the "sacred war", not aggression against another people and not the fulfillment of the oath before criminal power. "
You can’t strangle this song, you won’t kill: in modern Russia a new host of confessors of the Christian faith appeared, who suffered from its new persecutors in the person of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, the bishops and church officials obedient to him
(The most complete list of such victims is here . In the most serious cases, the state repressive car comes to the rescue - then the priests and ordinary believers go to places not so distant or displaced from the country.
Protodiacon Andrei Kuraev (the Ministry of Justice was recognized by the Russian Federation “Inoagent”, who also left the Russian Federation and has recently become a clergy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, notes the complete impotence of Cyril and his satraps after Constantinople opened the canonical window for illegally repressed priests of the Russian Orthodox Church. For the first time in many centuries, they get a chance to get out of serfdom dependence on the patriarchy, and the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church on its own “canonical territory” ceases to be absolute and unconditional.
This is the first step in the historical process of dismantling the post -Persian totalitarian structure of the Russian Orthodox Church in the form in which it took shape after its recount in 1943.
The church publicist Sergei Chapnin, who was living in the United States, who headed the editorial office of the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate”, predicts: “Restoring the clergy forbidden and deprived of the dignity [the Russian Orthodox Church in the Patriarchate of Constantinople] will be something more and more commonplace. As we repeat ... the procedures are simplified and polished. It will soon become clear that Cyril brought this mechanism to the limit. And thereby completely meaning him. "