How The Russian Orthodox Church Targets Anti-War Priests

(Valery Panyushkin and Systema – RFE/RL) For more than 20 years, Father Aleksei Uminsky served as the rector of a church in a quiet corner of central Moscow. His dismissal and defrocking took about 10 days. On January 4, 2024, three days before Russian Orthodox Christmas, the archpriest responsible for the area phoned Uminsky and told him to appear before him the following day. When he did so, the archpriest handed him a decree suspending him from the ministry — revoking his authority to preach to his flock. Less than an hour later, Uminsky stood before a disciplinary committee whose four members did not identify themselves but asked him several questions about why he was not reading a payer in support of Russia’s war on Ukraine in his services, then confirmed his suspension and ordered him to remove the cross from around his neck immediately. – How The Russian Orthodox Church Targets Anti-War Priests