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‘My old Sunday school is making camouflage nets’ How anti-war Russian priests are persecuted for their views and who helps them survive

Source: Meduza

From the very beginning of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has officially supported the invasion, and ROC head Patriarch Kirill has said he is convinced that Russia is “holding back the coming of the Antichrist.” For priests who don’t share this view, there’s little chance of keeping their jobs. Yet, some still choose to speak out against the official Church position, despite the consequences. Meduza’s special correspondent Andrey Pertsev spoke with Russian priests who’ve suffered due to their anti-war stance, as well as with organizers of the Peace unto All project, which assists them.

‘Not just crosses and domes’

In early March 2022, just a few days after Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the rector of a Russian church signed an open letter, along with other Russian Orthodox priests, calling for an end to the war. Soon after, he started having problems.

The priest says Church leadership started finding fault with everything he did and criticizing him for signing the letter. Then, they told rectors in the diocese to collect money from parishioners “for the needs of the ‘special military operation.’” The priest says he refused. “After that, I was removed from my position as church rector, although they cited a completely different reason: supposedly, I couldn’t handle the parish. I’d been handling it for over ten years, and suddenly, [they said] I was incapable,” he explains.

A short time later, some people with insider knowledge tipped him off that Russian security forces were starting to take a more serious interest in him and told him to get out of the country. “I left with just one backpack. And now, in the Sunday school that my wife and I used to organize, they’re making camouflage nets for the army,” he says.

The priest is now in the E.U., while his family remains in Russia. They’re being helped by the Peace unto All project, created in the fall of 2023 by priests Andrey Kordochkin and Valerian Dunin-Barkovskiy, musician Pavel Fakhrtdinov, and journalist Svetlana Neplikh-Thomas.

Very Rev. Dr. Andrey Kordochkin was appointed dean of the ROC Cathedral of St. Mary Magdalene in Madrid in 2003. In 2022, he spoke out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which led to a three-month ban from ministry in February 2023. In October 2023, Father Andrey submitted a request to leave the clergy. He says that while this request was “voluntary” in name, in reality, Church leadership forced him to write it. He now lives in Germany.

Father Valerian Dunin-Barkovsky serves at the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Düsseldorf, Germany. Like Father Andrey, Father Valerian condemned the war and criticized the Russian authorities and ROC leadership in the early days of the full-scale conflict. His church is formally part of the ROC but is under the Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox Churches in Western Europe, which enjoys a special status and greater freedom compared to other dioceses.

Journalist Svetlana Neplikh-Thomas left Russia for Germany a year and a half before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and musician Pavel Fakhrtdinov fled for fear of persecution after speaking out against the war.

Fakhrtdinov says the Peace unto All project hopes to show a different side of the Church:

‘The authorities need the war sanctified’

Peace unto All helps priests who’ve openly spoken out against the war in their sermons, signed anti-war appeals, or refused to pray for “victory” or collect money for the military. Fakhrtdinov says priests can “lose everything”: they don’t usually have transferable skills, and they often have large families to feed. According to Fakhrtdinov, the ROC has several ways of dealing with clergy members who speak out against the war: demoting them from their positions as parish rectors, removing them from their posts without reassigning them to another church, or sending them to smaller towns where salaries are lower.

It all often begins with reports from parishioners. When one priest, for example, refused to say prayers for Russian “victory” or to conceal his anti-war views, someone submitted a complaint to the diocese. Church leadership forced the priest to write a “request” to step down from his position. “Most likely, one of the parishioners made the report. They did what they thought was right,” the priest says.

Fakhrtdinov tells two more similar stories. Father Ioann Koval, a priest from Moscow who replaced the word “victory” with “peace” in a new prayer, was reported to Church leadership by members of his congregation. Father Ioann was defrocked. And Father Nikolai Platonov, from the Chelyabinsk region, had to leave Russia for Montenegro after signing the open anti-war letter in the early days of the full-scale war. Peace unto All is supporting him there while he waits for an E.U. humanitarian visa.

While Peace unto All helps with visas, it mainly focuses on fundraising and providing targeted assistance to priests: both those who have left Russia and those who remain in the country. The clergy members Meduza spoke with say this assistance is vital to them.

Peace unto All scans the media and social networks for information about priests who might need help, then reaches out and offers them support. The project has already assisted about 30 people. In some cases, with the priests’ consent, Peace unto All posts their stories on its site. “We want anti-war priests to be visible, and the Church not to appear as a monolith that supports the war,” Father Andrey explains. He believes many anti-war priests in Russia who don’t speak out do so not because they’re afraid, but because it’s the only way they can stay to take care of their parish and community.

His colleague Svetlana Neplikh-Thomas agrees. According to her, the ROC has long punished those who dissent or are different. She remembers a case long before the war where Church leadership accused a charismatic young priest of adultery and defrocked him. According to Neplikh-Thomas, the case was fabricated, possibly because the priest had so much authority and influence at such a young age. “It shocked us all that they could just destroy a person like this because he didn’t conform to a certain tradition and had his own perspective,” she says.

A priest still living in Russia who was reported to Church authorities, likely by one of his parishioners, says that clergy members who oppose the war try to keep in touch with each other through messenger apps. But, he adds, most are afraid to publicly express their opinion. “Even many of the 300 people who signed the [anti-war] letter [in March 2022] have reconsidered their views. It’s difficult to live in such an atmosphere, some people adapt so as not to go crazy,” he explains. He believes that colleagues who remain silent about the war most likely don’t support it but prefer to “stay in the shadows”: “After all, if you support it, it’s convenient and advantageous, there’s no need to hide it.”

The priest worries that the “iron curtain has come down from the outside”: he believes that Europe isn’t eager to take in Russian priests who’ve spoken out against the war and is reluctant to issue them visas. (Peace unto All organizers acknowledge that getting E.U. visas is currently challenging and say they’re trying to improve the situation.) As for the fact that he has essentially been banned from performing his religious duties, the Russian priest looks at it philosophically: “Who will forbid me to pray, to help others, to do good deeds? We need to help people stay sane and keep their humanity. I can do all of that, and I do.”

Currently, he’s looking for work unrelated to the Russian Orthodox Church and is receiving assistance from Peace unto All. He’s heard that the report filed against him could lead to a criminal case, but as long as there’s “no official order [to crack down on anti-war priests],” he remains in Russia.

Father Andrey Kordochkin concurs that clergymen in Russia aren’t being persecuted en masse at the moment but says that the situation could change: “Right now, the state is trying not to touch the priests, but there will be the first cases: the system is always crossing lines. The authorities desperately need the war to be sanctified — any statements against it are taken very poorly.”