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Father Sergiy, whose actual name is Nikolai Romanov, took over Sredneuralsk Convent near Yekaterinburg in the Urals, on 16 June. He posted armed guards there.

The Yekaterinburg Church court found he had broken monastic rules.

Fr Sergiy has condemned the closure of churches in the coronavirus lockdown.

He called the Covid-19 crisis "a pseudo-pandemic" and cursed those who ordered that church services be stopped on health grounds.

There have been complaints of child abuse at the convent under Fr Sergiy's leadership, and the Church court called for a thorough investigation of the allegations by the Russian authorities. The Church is also carrying out its own investigation....
BBC Russian has interviewed several witnesses who stayed at the convent between 2001 and 2020, and who described physical and psychological violence towards children as routine there.

The former residents said children were slapped or beaten for minor misdemeanours. Punishment was meted out for example if a girl took off her headscarf while hauling a sack of potatoes early in the morning, or if a child ran through the woods into town to get some chocolate.

Some of the nuns considered administering beatings to be as routine as tending the horses or working in the refectory, they alleged.

Fr Sergiy has stated that church authorities "will have to storm the monastery" if they want him to leave.

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Who is Father Sergiy?

A former policeman, Fr Sergiy spent 13 years in a prison colony for murder and robbery. He was released in the late 1990s.

Fr Sergiy is seen as the figurehead of the shadowy "tsar worshipper" movement within the Church.

Fr Sergiy has made numerous controversial claims in the past...he has criticised laws against domestic violence and anti-Semitic sermons.

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A prominent Russian Orthodox priest who was barred from preaching for his anti-coronavirus views has laid siege to a women’s monastery, the 66.ru news website reported Tuesday.

Religious authorities barred Father Sergei, the ultraconservative spiritual leader of the Sredneuralsk women’s monastery in central Russia, from public ministry in April for disobeying orders to follow health guidelines. Monasteries across Russia have been beset by Covid-19 cases amid Russia’s outbreak.

Father Sergei chased out the Sredneuralsk monastery’s installed leader and set up a perimeter of Cossack fighters to guard the site, according to Yekaterinburg’s 66.ru.

“Father Sergei literally removed the mother superior from management,” the Yekaterinburg diocese told the outlet.

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Father Sergiy Romanov, the abbot of a nearby men’s monastery who has praised Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and called the coronavirus a Western plot, commenced the standoff with church authorities on June 16 after he took over the Sredneuralsk Women’s Monastery and called on his followers to join him.

Local media reported that a group of Cossacks, members of a paramilitary group with deep historical roots in Russia, surrounded the convent until its abbess and nuns decided to vacate it.....

(Fr Sergei)has publicly challenged authorities of the Russian Orthodox Church at a time when the country’s predominant religious organization is riven with internal conflicts....

Some ultraconservative members of the institution assert that the church leadership and President Vladimir Putin's government are too liberal, and unwittingly in thrall to outside forces seeking to weaken Russia by undermining its spiritual values.

Romanov is a prominent figure among the faithful in and around Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, where some consider him a spiritual leader of the Tsarebozhniki, a breakaway sect of the Orthodox Church whose adherents worship Nicholas II, the last tsar, as a saint who suffered a martyr's death for them, and advocate a return to monarchy. The Russian Orthodox Church canonized the last tsar and his family in 2000, but not as martyrs killed for their faith.

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Among the people who reportedly turned out in support of the rogue cleric’s takeover of the Sredneuralsk convent was former NHL hockey player Pavel Datsyuk. A Yekaterinburg native, the athlete has spoken out in support of Romanov after the priest was banned from service.

“With the father’s blessing, many questions resolve themselves,” Yekaterinburg-based news outlet Ura.ru quoted Datsyuk as saying on June 4. “I’m thankful that God has given me and my family such a spiritual father.”

According to local media reports, Romanov remains holed up in the convent, conducting services for parishioners despite his official suspension. But his support may be slipping. Late on June 17, the regional Cossack leadership issued a statement distancing itself from the abbot and said only “individual members” of its community backed him.

The same day, Romanov recorded a defiant video address in which he refused to leave the women’s monastery and claimed to have the full backing of parishioners and additional support from “33,000 military officers” who fought in Moscow’s wars in Chechnya and Afghanistan.

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t just 17, Carsyn Leigh Davis had already experienced more challenges than most people face in their entire lives. From age 2, she battled a host of health issues, including cancer and a rare autoimmune disorder. But not once did Carsyn let the serious ailments get her down, her family said.

So when the high school student from Fort Myers, Fla., died last month after contracting the novel coronavirus, her death — which marked Lee County’s youngest virus-related fatality at the time — sent shock waves through the community.

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A medical examiner’s report

[floridacovidaction.files.wordpress.com]

recently made public

[floridacovidvictims.com]

however, has raised questions about Carsyn’s case. The Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner found that the immunocompromised teen went to a large church party with roughly 100 other children where she did not wear a mask and social distancing was not enforced.

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Carsyn’s family also noted that she was “a devout Christian and follower of Jesus,” and “actively involved in Youth Church at First Assembly of God in Ft. Myers.”

On June 10, Carsyn was one of dozens of young people who attended the church event mentioned in the report. While the report did not include specifics about the gathering, Jones shared images of a June 10 post from the First Youth Church’s Facebook page advertising an event scheduled for that night called a “Release Party.” The church’s page has since been taken down.

“Service is back and better than ever!” the post said. “There will be games, awesome giveaways, free food, a DJ and music, and the start of our new sermon series.”

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On Twitter, Jones shared images of posts from a Facebook profile with Brunton Davis’s name, which is no longer online. One post expressed support for anti-mask efforts and another criticized the methods doctors were using to treat Carsyn.

“The doctors are refusing to give her Hydroxychloriquine [sic], citing ‘new studies’ that it does not work and can be harmful. Using it is against their policy,” the post read. “This is very upsetting to me, as many of you know how I feel about that.”

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Sean Illing

I’d like to steelman the evangelical perspective, so can you tell me what cultural forces they’re reacting against?
Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Well, it changes over time. In the ’40s and ’50s, it’s all about anti-communism. But once the civil rights revolution takes hold, it becomes about defending the stability of the traditional social order against all the cultural revolutions of the ’60s. But the really interesting moment for me is in the early ’90s when the Cold War comes to an end. You would think there would be a kind of resetting after the great enemy had been vanquished, but that’s not what happened.

Instead, we get the modern culture wars over sex and gender identity and all the rest. And then 9/11 happens and Islam becomes the new major threat. So it’s always shifting, and at a certain point I started asking the question, particularly post-9/11, what comes first here? Is it the fear of modern change, of whatever’s happening in the moment? Or were evangelical leaders actively seeking out those threats and stoking fear in order to maintain their militancy, to maintain their power?
Sean Illing

So this drift into a more militant and nationalist Christianity leads to this obsession with toughness and machismo. The way you put it is that evangelicals are looking for “spiritual badasses.” They don’t want gentle Jesus, they want William Wallace (as in the film 'Braveheart'-Corboy) or John Wayne.

(Corboy commentary.

What Professor Kobes du Mez tells us is not hypocrisy. It is the result when insecure, frightened, sincere white males read their Bible through the lens of anger and fear combined with specific cultural messages - a combination that itself is never rooted in Sermon on the Mount.)


Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Yeah, these are their role models. Most white evangelical men that I knew during the height of this movement, which is really the early 2000s, were very militant. They were buying these hypermasculine books and taking part in these men’s reading groups. They weren’t living out this rugged, violent lifestyle, except maybe at weekend retreats where they role-played this stuff. But in real life, they were still walking around in khakis and polo shirts, but these were the values that were really animating their worldview.

Sean Illing

Wait, are there weekend retreats where evangelical men are role-playing Braveheart?
Kristin Kobes Du Mez

I don’t know about that in particular, but this is very much a thing. The success of John Eldredge’s book Wild at Heart [a huge bestseller that urged young Christian men to reclaim their masculinity] was a big deal in the evangelical world, and it sold millions of copies just in the US. Every college Christian men’s group was reading this. It was everywhere in the early 2000s.

There were lots of conferences celebrating this version of a rugged Christianity. It was big business, and there were lots of weekend retreats where men could go out into the wilderness and practice their masculinity. Local churches invented their own versions of this. One church I know in Washington had their own local Braveheart games that involves wrestling with pigs or something. It was all weird and different, but the point was to prove and express your masculinity.

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Kristin Kobes Du Mez

The emphasis on strict “gender difference” and perceived need to “define” Christian manhood is far greater in conservative white evangelicalism than in other Christian subcultures. White evangelicals also stand out in terms of their emphasis on militancy and their conceptions of masculinity, and in how that militant masculinity is connected to Christian nationalism.

In Black Protestantism, for example, you may find an emphasis on Christian manhood, but you’re much more likely to encounter discussions of fatherhood rather than a militant warrior masculinity. In mainline Protestantism you’ll be more likely to encounter a kinder, gentler masculinity — more of the Mr. Rogers sort. (Militant white evangelical masculinity explicitly denounces Mr. Rogers’s model of manhood.)

That said, evangelical constructions of masculinity have made inroads into mainline circles largely via popular culture (many mainline churches use evangelical literature in their small-group Bible studies, for example), so the lines between white evangelical and mainline Christianity are not always all that clearly drawn.

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In purity culture, both young men and women are taught that sex before marriage is wrong. But it’s teenage girls who end up most affected, Klein finds, because while boys are taught that their minds are a gateway to sin, women are taught that their bodies are. After years of being told that they’re responsible for not only their own purity, but the purity of the men and boys around them; and of associating sexual desire with depravity and shame, Klein writes, those feelings often haunt women’s relationships with their bodies for a lifetime.

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His(Metropolitan Nathanael of Chicago) decision was approved by the vast majority of the faithful of the Metropolis, with the exception of a small group, the so called “Ephraimites”, who are known to place allegiance to the late Geron Ephraim of Arizona and a local monastery in Illinois. Some of them are pushing for a petition to Archbishop Epidophoros and Metropolitan Nathanael, to allow Church Services during the Holy Week.

“The decision to suspend services throughout the Metropolis on Sunday, March 15th was the most difficult decision I’ve made as Metropolitan”, he told the Greek News in an exclusive interview.

Until then, the directive about the maximum number of people allowed to join a gathering was 250. But Nathanael seeking the advice of the experts, he was convinced that the regulation was based on highly inaccurate information.

“If I permitted services to continue as planned, the lives of thousands of people in Church that Sunday, as well as others who would come in contact with them following Church services, would be placed at risk. I requested additional advice; I reviewed the information; I asked questions, prayed, and then took action.”

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Metropolitan Nathanael of Chicago:

"I know that there are some people in Chicago that push for a petition to you and the Archbishop, asking for services to take place during the Holy Week and Holy Communion to be offered. What do you tell them?

"Unfortunately, there is a network of individuals that operate beneath the surface of the Church. They believe they have a right to the Eucharist. They believe that the Church is theirs and that no one has the right to keep them from it. Under normal conditions, they appear to be pious, humble and obedient members of the Church. They attend services regularly, participate in the sacraments frequently, and know prayers by heart, and so, they believe themselves to be advancing spiritually.

"These last two years, and most especially during the COVID-19 crisis, I have come to learn that these people are the modern-day Scribes and the Pharisees of antiquity. I have seen and experienced their true nature.
"
They are selfish and their ego and pride is at the core of their actions. They advocate for blind obedience to select “spiritual fathers,” regardless of whether the guidance they receive is consistent with the teachings of the Church or not.

"They defend severe penances, even excommunication, handed down by their gerontes for moral lapses, but they refuse to accept when the Church calls for the temporary withholding of the Eucharist.

"To get their way, they will search for loopholes in directives and teachings of the Church.

They will operate quietly so that those outside of their camp do not take notice of what they’re up to.

"Most recently, a physician from within this group sent a message to numerous individuals, including my clergy, informing them that somehow the coronavirus was no longer transmittable through the air. This person then concluded that our Churches should once again be open.

"A clergyman in this group then solicited the support of other physicians in a pressure campaign against me with the goal of bullying me to reopen Churches contrary to public health guidance, the advice of doctors in our Metropolis, and the decisions of the Holy Synod. I am truly saddened by this kind of behavior."

I am disappointed that during this worldwide crisis – at a time where we are called to unite, take care of one another, and let our best come out, this group, including the clergy within this camp, decide to sow dissent in a manner that puts lives at risk.
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Link to a Youtube discussion

Navigating the COVID-19 Crisis and Its Implications on Our Metropolis

Metropolitan Nathanael moderates a discussion with health care, public health and law enforcement professionals on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

[www.youtube.com]

Some comments following this article

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April 13, 2020 at 5:23 pm

Metropolitan Nathanael (HEMN) is showing remarkable leadership! He has done nothing to divide the Faithful, that happened when the accepted Theology of our Faith was polluted by followers of Elder Ephraim of Blessed Memory. Those followers and the heresies they promote are the ones dividing the Faith and it’s Faithful. Over time other hierarchs have called out the Ephraimite issue. But of late they have gone silent as their personal cowardness has taken over. Let’s not pretend we, as a religion don’t have a problem.

There was a report submitted on January 12, 1999 by a majority of United States based Metropolitans to the Patriarch. Here is what the report stated on this issue:

“Fanatical Adherents and Super-Orthodox (Fundamentalists)
Contributing factors to the division of our Christians are certain excesses which are not necessarily the creation of the Archbishop or the Monastic Ephraim, but are related to them because some of the clergy and laity, for their own selfish purpose, invoke the authority of both. Conservatism is one thing, fanaticism is one thing. Traditionalism is one thing, “super-Orthodoxy” and “fundamentalism” other things.”

Attacking HEMN is just an out and out perversion of the truth. If anything HEMN and the Greek News as well as the author of this article, Apostolos Zoupaniotis should be congratulated and applauded.