The bishop Ignatiy (Punin) was accused of gross violations of the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church while managing the Vyborg Diocese.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow referred the case to the High General Church Court of the Russian Orthodox Church, the ROC press service reports.
Ignatiy was also released from the administration of the Minusynsk Diocese. Metropolitan Panteleimon of Krasnoyarsk and Achynsk has been appointed temporary head of the Minusynsk Diocese.
It remains unclear when exactly the violations of which Bishop Ignatiy (Punin) is being accused were discovered. However, the ROC press release suggests the violation was discovered after he was dismissed from the top post in the Minusynsk Diocese.
Ignatiy (Punin) devoted many years of work to the Department of External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church. He is a member of the Supreme Church Council of the Russian Orthodox Church and he also headed the Synodal Department for Youth Affairs for a few years. In November 2023, he was awarded by Vladimir Putin with the medal of the Order of Merit before the Fatherland 2nd degree.
Earlier, the Supreme Universal Church Court banned two bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, including Bishops Ignatiy (Buzyna) and Ignatiy (Tarasov) from religious services. Both bishops were found guilty of committing ecclesiastical offenses as well as homosexuality, and were sentenced to a ban in the priesthood.
All these clerics are proteges of Moscow Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev). It is also worth noting that not so long ago, the Russian Orthodox Church laid to rest the Metropolitan Exarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Africa, Leonid (Gorbachev), who was a friend of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and supervised separatist efforts on the African continent.
