Google – AFP, Anna Malpas (AFP), 6 aug 2013
 |
Supporters
of punk group Pussy Riot wear coloured balaclavas in Moscow
on August 15, 2012
(NOVAYA GAZETA/AFP/File, Yevgeny Feldman)
|
SAINT-PETERSBURG
— A man stabbed to death an elderly Russian priest who was deeply critical of
Orthodox Church leadership and had supported the activist punk rock group Pussy
Riot, investigators said Tuesday.
Pavel
Adelgeim, 75, died late Monday in the northwestern Pskov region from a stab
wound to his heart, regional investigators said.
A man, born
in 1986, was arrested on suspicion of murdering the priest but stabbed himself
as he was being detained. He has now been hospitalised with lung damage and
investigators were waiting to interrogate him.
According
to investigators, the young man had been staying with the priest before the
murder. The motive is unclear.
Adelgeim, a
former religious dissident who had been imprisoned under Soviet rule, had in
recent years in his blog and newspaper articles been hugely critical of the
powerful leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church.
For a
religious figure he had been unusually vocal in his support for Pussy Riot, two
of whose members are serving two year prison camp terms for an illegal
performance in a Moscow church.
Pussy
Riot's February, 2012 performance in the Church of Christ the Saviour in Moscow
denounced the links between the Russian Orthodox Church and President Vladimir
Putin.
In 2012,
Adelgeim joined hundreds of other prominent Russians in signing a letter urging
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill to show mercy towards the imprisoned Pussy
Riot members.
"The
women have unmasked the lie of the Russian Orthodox Church and its unnatural
bond with the Russian Federation," he wrote in a recent blog entry.
He argued
that the Church had alienated society with its push for Orthodox priests to
play a role in religious education in schools and in the armed forces despite
Russia being a secular state, as well as by taking back former Church property
used as museums.
"Dancing
in the Church of Christ the Savior was a dysfunctional reaction to the illegal
activities of the titular religion in a secular state," he wrote in his
blog.
He argued
that Pussy Riot's protest was "providential" because it exposed the
widespread public unease over the Church's role and that the Church must seek
reconciliation with those who sympathised with the women in order to avoid a
split in society.
This
contrasted with the official stance of the Russian Orthodox Church, which used
Pussy Riot's case to talk of dark forces opposing the Church and to rally
believers.
"The
last free priest in the Moscow Patriarchate has been murdered," wrote
Andrei Kurayev, an outspoken clergyman known for his reformist views, in his
blog.
A message
of condolences posted on the Moscow Patriarchate's website said that Patriarch
Kirill "grieves over the tragic death of Father Pavel Adelgeim and prays
for the repose of his soul."
Adelgeim
came from a family of German origin and his grandfather owned several factories
in pre-revolutionary Russia, before being shot by the Soviets in the 1930s.
Both his
parents were arrested when he was a small child and his father was shot in
1942. He lived in a children's home before joining his mother in exile in
Kazakhstan.
After
training as a priest and serving in Uzbekistan, he was sent to prison camp in
1969 for slandering the Soviet regime. He lost his right leg during rioting in
the camp before being freed in 1972.
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