The Slaviansk District Court of the Krasnodar Territory fined the head of the alternative Moscow Patriarchate of the small Russian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Viktor (Pivovarov) of Slavyansk and South Russia, a total or RUB 150,000.
This is reported by Radio Liberty.
The court found him guilty of repeatedly discrediting the Russian army. In his article, published in the blog “Christianity Today”, the clergyman called the war in Ukraine evil, and the Russian soldiers – the likeness of Satan.
Archbishop Pivovarov, 86, had already been charged for “discrediting” the army. In March 2023, he was fined RUB 40,000 for a sermon in which he condemned the war. In the fall of 2023, the church in Sloviansk-on-Kuban, where Pivovarov served, was raided. As “OVD-Info” reports, during the search, law enforcers threatened the priest and his assistant.
The website of the alternative Russian Orthodox Church states that part of the fine will be paid from the funds seized during the raid and the missing amount will be collected by the parishioners.
The Russian Orthodox Church (RusOC) stands in opposition to the ROC of the Moscow Patriarchate. Archbishop Viktor Pivovarov headed a small parish in the Holy Intercession and Tikhon Church of the RusOC in Sloviansk-on-Kuban. The Russian authorities persecute representatives of alternative Orthodoxy who are forced to conduct semi-legal services.
“The point is that I’m going to move to another world soon, I have to warn my main congregation in Slavyansk so that they neither lean to the left nor to the right. And we had to answer the question of whether we are fighting against Ukraine correctly. I had to tell them directly that wars are different: there is a holy war, a defensive one, when enemies attack, and there is, on the contrary, an aggressive one. You can distinguish them only in this way: if foreign tanks, foreign soldiers stand outside our homes, then we are fighting with them defensively. If our tanks are in someone else’s country and our soldiers humiliate others so wildly, then we are the invaders,” Archbishop Viktor explained his position.
