Muscovites feel ‘crushed by war’, says city’s Anglican priest
A CHURCH of England priest in Moscow has spoken of his sense of “powerlessness” over the war in Ukraine and claims that some Russians are “crushed by what has been done in their name”.
His comments come after Russia passed a new law meaning that citizens who spread what it describes as “fake” information about the military can be jailed for up to 15 years.
Last week, a Russian priest was arrested over a sermon that condemned the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine, amid the threat of charges and a court hearing with claims of “discrediting” the Russian army.
The Rev Canon Malcolm Rogers, the priest in charge of St Andrew’s Anglican church in central Moscow, said that reading the news makes him feel “powerless”, adding that “most of us are in no position to solve world problems or to bring peace”.
“We pray for the time when there will be no more ‘fake news’, lies, betrayals or violence, and no more fear and death,” he said.
However, he said that while “there are some things that we cannot say in Moscow”, we “can still speak truth”.
The Rev Rogers said that some Russians do not condone the war in Ukraine.
He described them as: “The young Russian crushed by what has been done in his name; the mother sick with anxiety for her son who has been sent to
‘We pray for the time when there will be no more “fake news”, lies, betrayals, violence, no fear and death’
Ukraine; the foreign student unsure whether to leave or how to leave; the person who has been named on the wrong sort of list; the older person who fears a return to the isolation and economic depression of the 1980s.”
He added: “In our hubris we think that we are somebodies who can save the world – and we end up paralysed.
“But it is when we realise our powerlessness, that in the world’s eyes we are ‘nobodies’, that we can begin to see the neighbour who God has given us and learn to serve them.
“Pray for us, for courage and wisdom and perseverance in faith and love. And we will pray for you.”
Russian priest Father Ioann Burdin, of the Resurrection Church in the country’s western Kostroma region, was detained shortly after his sermon last weekend.
Father Ioann “committed a public offence aimed at discrediting the Russian armed forces which are conducting a special military operation” in Ukraine, according to a police report quoted by Mediazona.
He told the parishioners about “Russian troops in Ukraine shelling the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv and killing citizens of Ukraine – brothers and sisters in Christ,” the report said.
The priest was fined an equivalent of £230 yesterday.