PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE IN LENINGRAD OBLAST SEIZES LITERATURE IN ROCOR PARISH WHICH IT ASKS TO BE FOUND "EXTREMIST"
Portal-Credo.ru, 29 August 2018
A case on article 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Violations of Law ("Production and distribution of extremist materials") was opened by the prosecutor's office of Leningrad oblast with respect to a local resident who possessed some Orthodox literature on the territory of a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) in the village of Dudachkino of Volkhov district, the "Sova" Center for News and Analysis reports on 29 August.
The case involves the magazine "Rus Pravoslavnaia" and several other publications. The literature, in which the prosecutor's office saw indications of the propaganda of inferiority on the basis of religious or ethnic affiliation, had not previously been ruled to be extremist. Therefore the prosecutor's office sent the confiscated books to the Volkhov city court for finding them to be extremist materials and including them in the corresponding federal list.
This parish of the ROCOR had previously been the object of attention of law enforcement agencies. In particular, in 2013 a sign saying "Orthodoxy or Death" had been taken down there and in June 2018 a criminal case based on article 282 of the CC of RF was opened with respect to a clergyman of the church, the priest Alexander Sukhov.
The jurisdictional affiliation of this parish remains unclear after the first hierarch of the ROCOR(A), Metropolitan Agafangel, under whose omophorion the parish is, inhibited its rector from ministry. (tr. by PDS, posted 30 August 2018)
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