RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Disputes within Russian Orthodox activist community

"GOD'S WILL" SPLIT BECAUSE OF ENTEO'S FRIENDSHIP WITH PUSSY RIOT MEMBER

RIA Novosti, 3 October 2017

 

Orthodox activists from the movement "God's Will" quarreled because the leader of the organization, Dmitry Tsorionov (Enteo), collaborated with a member of the notorious punk group Pussy Riot, Maria Alekhina.

 

On Tuesday, one of the representatives of "God's Will," the main defendant in the case of the pogrom in the Manezh, Liudmila Odegova (Eispenko), posted on her Facebook page an announcement that from now on only she is heading the movement. Odegova accused Enteo of friendship with "unrepentant blasphemers," sacrilege, and slander.

 

The leader of the Orthodox public movement "God's Will," Dmitry Tsorionov, nicknamed Enteo, on 14 August 2015, along with his supporters, damaged works of the 1960s and 1970s in an exhibit in the Moscow Manezh, "Sculptures that we have not seen," declaring that they offended believers' feelings.

 

"This is a personal affront. Mila did not like the demonstration when I called people of the most diverse views to come to the Ministry of Justice and support the right of each person to read the Bible without the consent of bureaucrats. Masha Alekhina came to our demonstration," Tsorionov explained for RIA Novosti. He said that Odegova did not come to the demonstration because of this.

 

Pussy Riot is the notorious punk group in Russia whose members in February 2012 arrived at the church of Christ the Savior in Moscow and, wearing masks, conducted a so-called punk prayer service. Videos with the performance were posted on the Internet and evoked an enormous outcry. At the time, "God's Will" demanded the harshest punishment for participants in the action.

 

"Masha still found in herself the courage, desire, and strength to come and support Christians with all her heart at the Ministry of Justice. I appreciated this very much. People do not understand that Maria is a most interesting, profound person who now is engaged, in my view, in proper things. She is a person who has devoted herself to real help for prisoners. She came to believe in God," Tsorionov explained.

 

In his opinion, nowadays "God's Will" has fulfilled its mission. From now on Tsorionov has decided to devote himself to the movement of "Decommunization." At the same time, he says, Odegova prefers to quarrel and not to search for "points of common interest."

 

After the "punk prayer service" in the church of Christ the Savior, police arrested three members of the demonstration—Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Ekaterina Samutsevich. The Khamovnich court of Moscow in August 2012 sentenced them to two years in a prison colony of general regime for hooliganism. In October of the same year, a Moscow city court commuted Samutsevich's sentence to a suspended one.

 

In December 2013, Tolokonnikova and Alekhina were released from the penal colony in connection with the amnesty to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the constitution of the Russian federation. (tr. by PDS, posted 4 October 2017)


Background articles:

Vigilantism incident not going away quietly
August 18, 2015  m m m,
August 21, 2015
Vigilantism in art exhibit may yet be punished
September 8, 2015
Punk protest commotion continues
March 22, 2012
Orthodox sign petitions
March 19, 2012


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