KURAEV: "I DO NOT DOUBT THAT THE PHANAR WILL RECEIVE ME BUT I FEAR ARREST"
Religiina Pravda, 18 April 2021
Archdeacon Andrei Kuraev, the banned cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church, declared in an interview with Anton Krasovsky that after he is stripped of clerical rank he intends to transfer into the patriarchate of Constantinople, but he has not decided because he is afraid of winding up in prison on a charge of espionage.
In conversation with the journalist, Kuraev declared that he views transfer into the Constantinople patriarchate as completely realistic, but for now he is not doing it inasmuch as he does not have in his hands a document about the annulment of his clerical rank.
Kuraev is sure that he will be received into the jurisdiction of the Constantinople patriarchate, but thus far he has not reached out to the Phanar because he does not want to violate whatever protocols there are. In the next sentence the archdeacon declared yet another argument for not approaching the Phanar: he fears arrest.
"I do not doubt that they will receive me, but the atmosphere in the country is such that when I become a cleric of the patriarchate of Constantinople, I will be declared to be a foreign agent, and then a foreign spy," Kuraev says.
Kuraev noted that this is a real threat and he
was told
about this by security agents he knows, adding that if he is
expelled from the
church, he certainly will go to Constantinople. (tr. by PDS,
posted 18 April
2021)
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