Telephone terrorism for Jesus

Russia’s radical Christian right could be to blame for at least one of the recent evacuations sweeping the nation. Russian Orthodox activists detained on suspicion of setting fire to multiple cars outside the law office of a controversial filmmaker’s lawyer have reportedly confessed to phoning in an anonymous bomb threat to a movie theater in Vladivostok, sources told the news agency RIA Novosti.

On September 13, the leader of the rightwing group “Christian State — Holy Rus,” Alexander Kalinin, declared on Vkontakte that at least some of the bomb threats sweeping Russia since mid-September are part of a “social campaign” against Alexey Uchitel’s controversial new film “Matilda,” an upcoming movie about the ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska and her relationship with Nicholas II before he became tsar, which Orthodox Christian activists have condemned as a sacrilegious affront.