Nikita Ivankovich, a Russian Orthodox theologian and subdeacon, and Denis Popovich, a church worker, had been arrested in February on accusations that they tried to assassinate Bishop Tikhon Shevkunov. Shevkunov, the Metropolitan of Crimea, has been described within the media as “Putin’s confessor.”
Russian media outlet Novosti claims that the 2 males deliberate to kill Shevkunov with an improvised bomb throughout a deliberate go to to Moscow’s Sretensky Monastery, performing on behalf of Ukrainian army intelligence. Russia’s secret police, the FSB, circulated a video of the 2 church staff confessing their crimes.
However Ivankovich’s good friend, Anglican priest George Vidiakin, doesn’t consider it. He thinks the story was invented to scare Russians into considering that Ukrainians have infiltrated all elements of society, together with the church.
Vidiakin, an ethnic Russian, was a Russian Orthodox priest for six years earlier than being acquired into the Anglican Church. He now serves Christ Church, Ayia Napa, in Cyprus.
“We don’t consider he’s able to assassinating anybody,” Vidiakin stated. “He’s a really peaceable individual.”
Ivankovich, Vidiakin claims, had loved a superb relationship with Shevkunov, as did Popovich, who served as Shevkunov’s assistant. Ivankovich and Popovich each expressed their deep affection for Bishop Tikhon in statements printed by Russian impartial media outlet Mediazona, which additionally recounted the tortures they endured by the hands of Russian police.
The 2 are in jail awaiting a trial, which has but to be scheduled. Vidiakin is frightened that neither will obtain a good trial, and hopes to deliver Western consideration to the case. “Though I’m within the dock, I hope that the reality will in the end prevail. My coronary heart nonetheless burns with the will to serve God,” stated the interpretation of Popovich’s printed assertion.
Each Ivankovich and Popovich are ethnic Ukrainians. Ivankovich was raised in Moscow, and Popovich moved to Russia over a decade in the past. Giant numbers of ethnic Ukrainians reside in Russia, and lots of are clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church. Spiritual life was much less absolutely suppressed by the Soviets in Western Ukraine, and the Russian Orthodox Church recruited many Ukrainians to function clergy throughout its revitalization interval.
Many different Ukrainians moved to Russia for financial alternatives. Some Ukrainians have absolutely assimilated into Russian society, however others retain deep affection for his or her homeland and other people. However whereas earlier than the conflict this was not seen as a possible downside, now any trace of pro-Ukrainian sentiment is seen as potential subversion.
Vidiakin is fast to say the Russian state shouldn’t be solely focusing on Ukrainians, however anybody who could disagree with it. One of the best-known up to date dissident was Alexei Navalny, a Russian lawyer and political prisoner who died in 2024 after disappearing from a Siberian jail camp. However 1000’s of different folks—from all walks of Russian society, together with youngsters—have been arrested because the conflict in opposition to Ukraine started in 2022.
It’s an particularly fraught time to be a priest. The official stance of the Russian Orthodox Church has been extraordinarily pro-war, to the purpose of calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “holy conflict.” The Russian church portrays Ukraine as an agent of the West, which it says promotes Satanism over true Christianity.
In a sermon in September 2022, a number of months after the conflict in opposition to Ukraine started, Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church advised troopers that “sacrifice in the middle of finishing up your army responsibility washes away all sins.” After the conflict started, the Russian Orthodox Church launched a brand new prayer for Russia’s victory, which clergymen are alleged to recite throughout the Divine Liturgy.
The Russian church was additionally already at odds with many different Orthodox church buildings over non secular jurisdiction in Ukraine even earlier than the conflict started. After the 2018 announcement that Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople would grant autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Russian church unilaterally severed full communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch and the church buildings immediately topic to him, together with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.
In Ukraine, roughly equal numbers of church buildings are affiliated with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine-Moscow Patriarchate, which resisted the motion towards autocephaly. The Ukrainian authorities formally banned the Moscow Patriarchate-affiliated church in 2024, characterizing its clergy as pro-Russian fifth columnists, however fewer than 1,000 church buildings have switched jurisdictions.
Some Orthodox clergymen in Russia absolutely help Kirill’s aggressive posture towards Ukraine, and Orthodox clergy have died whereas ministering to these on the entrance. However others are strongly opposed. Most have stored quiet about their opinions, fearing that clergymen deemed insufficiently loyal shall be laicized.
Vidiakin says that this has occurred to a number of of his pals. “If you’re a middle-aged man, it’s not very simple to start out a brand new life. They don’t have a secular career,” he stated, including that many Russian Orthodox clergy have served the church for all their grownup lives.
Vidiakin doesn’t suppose most Russians help the conflict. “It’s a vocal minority,” he stated. This doesn’t imply they’re pro-Ukraine: quite, they merely don’t care. Not less than initially, the conflict appeared like a distant downside. The entrance was far-off, and the Russian army tended to conscript younger males from Russia’s ethnic minorities, not these from Moscow and St. Petersburg.
However now that Ukraine has ramped up drone strikes in opposition to Russia, the consequences of the conflict are extra apparent. The Moscow Instances reported on September 30 that Ukrainian drone strikes have severely broken Russian oil refineries, taking out 40 % of their capability. On September 28, two folks in a Moscow suburb had been killed by a hearth began by a Ukrainian drone.
Greta Gaffin is a contract author primarily based in Boston. She has a grasp of theological research diploma from Boston College and a bachelor’s diploma in economics from the College of Massachusetts Amherst.
