Dozens of Russian Orthodox priests have been punished for challenging the Church’s line on the war – for example, by reading out prayers for peace instead of victory – according to Christians against War, an online group that has documented their cases.
Uminsky was the most prominent casualty so far. He had served for 30 years as senior priest at the Church of the Life-Giving Holy Trinity in Moscow before being abruptly fired this month, just before Orthodox Christmas, in a move that paved the way for Saturday’s verdict. He was renowned for his hospice work for dying children and adults, and led the funeral for former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 2022.
In an interview last November, Uminsky said that the language of war and the “special military operation” was “in no way compatible” with church liturgy.
He encouraged believers to seek out priests who “pray more for peace than for victory and understand that any victory is always a pyrrhic victory in these wars…In modern wars any victory is almost always equivalent to self-destruction.”
Ksenia Luchenko, an expert on the Russian Orthodox Church at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the verdict against Uminsky was unsound because the prayer he was accused of refusing to read had not been considered and approved by the highest body of the Church, the Holy Synod.
She said his punishment was “evidence of Patriarch Kirill’s usurpation of power in the Russian Orthodox Church and violation of its statutory documents”.
Uminsky has not commented in public on his firing. The church court said the decision to expel him was taken in his absence after he failed to attend despite being summoned three times.
A total of 11,627 Orthodox believers have signed an open letter in his support since he was removed as priest of the Holy Trinity church and replaced by Andrei Tkachov, a vocal champion of the war.
They said the decision had caused them great pain and would deprive thousands of people of spiritual support.
“This is a great tragedy for many believers, for children’s hospice patients, for hundreds of prisoners and thousands of homeless people.”
(Picture Courtesy: Pravmir)