The Slavyansk City Court of the Krasnodar Territory fined theologian Viktor Pivovarov 40,000 rubles in the case of “discrediting” the Russian army (Part 1 of Article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses) because of preaching in a church. Mediazona drew attention to the case card.
The protocol for the priest was drawn up on March 1. The text of the resolution does not contain the words or the text of the sermon for which he was brought to administrative responsibility. It is only indicated that, while in the church, he “carried out public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the RF Armed Forces.”
Viktor Pivovarov is the Archbishop of Slavic and South Russian Orthodox Church (RosPTs). RosROC is one of the alternative Orthodox jurisdictions that recognizes the canonicity of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC).
In my country blocked
present tense
“Mediazona” calculated that during the year of full-scale aggression in Ukraine, 6003 protocols on “discrediting” the Russian army were submitted to the Russian courts. At least 503 people, according to OVD-Info, became defendants in criminal cases because of their anti-war position.
Dmitry Baev, a former deacon of the Orthodox parish of the Church of St. John the Baptist in Kirov, became a defendant in a criminal case about “fakes” about the Russian army in March last year. The case was brought against him because of posts in support of Ukraine. The priest himself resigned from the church on February 25 and left Russia with his family.
By the decision of the Diocesan Church Court, he was “deposed from the priesthood,” and Rosfinmonitoring included Baev in the list of terrorists and extremists.
“It felt like the world had collapsed.” A priest fined for preaching speaks about his reaction to the war in Ukraine and the trial for “discrediting the army”:
