A parishioner with anti-war views was detained in a Moscow church. He claims that a priest wrote a denunciation against him

Moscow police detained parishioner Alexei Sevastyanenko, who holds anti-war views, in the church. OVD-Info writes about this with reference to the detainee himself.

As Sevastyanenko said, Archpriest Andrei Tkachev, who serves as rector of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Khokhly, wrote a denunciation against him. Previously, the parishioner shared his anti-war views in personal conversations with the priest. In particular, he told the abbot: “Do not kill or covet your neighbor’s house.”

Sevastyanenko was taken to the police department in the Basmanny district, where they plan to leave him overnight. The detainee has not yet been informed what kind of offense they are going to charge him with.

Updated . Sevastyanenko was released from the police on an obligation to appear, writes OVD-Info. They plan to draw up an administrative protocol against the parishioner about “discrediting” the Russian Army (Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code).

• The rector of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Khokhly from 1993 to 2024 was priest Alexey Uminsky. He stated that he could not support military action in Ukraine. In January 2024, Uminsky was banned from ministry and defrocked. Now he is a cleric of the Church of Our Lady of the Sign in Paris.
• Archpriest Andrei Tkachev, who took Uminsky’s place, moved to Russia from Ukraine in 2014. He supports the policies of the Russian authorities and the military invasion of Ukraine, writes Novaya Gazeta Europe.