ACCORDING TO PRELIMINARY INFORMATION, ADMINISTRATOR OF RPTsMP PARISHES IN U.S.A. REFUSED EXTENSION OF AMERICAN VISA
Credo.Press, 28 September 2018
"Bishop of Naro-Fominsk Ioann, who administers patriarchal parishes in America (Moscow patriarchate), was refused an American visa," a well informed Orthodox publicist from Kiev, Tatiana Derkach, wrote in her blog on 28 September 2018.
Bishop Ioann [Ioann Georgy Roshchin--tr.] has served in the see in the U.S.A. since August 2014 (he was a priest fewer than 7 years). Previously, in 2000-2002, he studied at Catholic University in Washington and is considered in the staff of the Moscow patriarchate to be a "specialist on America." In Russia, the future Bishop Ioann was known as the priest Georgy Roshchin, a deputy of the chairman of the Department of Relations of Church and Society of the Moscow patriarchate (from 2009), Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin. In this post, Father Georgy was noticed for a number of radically "patriotic" statements and was a representative of the World Russian People's Council at the United Nations. He was a member of the Council for Study of Materials of Religious Contents, searching for manifestations in them of indicators of extremism under the Russian Ministry of Justice, and he represented the RPTsMP in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of the States of Belarus and the RF.
Despite his reputed caution during his ministry in the US.A., Bishop Ioann still was noticed for a number of political statements in support of the policy of Putin and the "Russian World." The clergy of patriarchal parishes of the RPTsMP in the US.A. made a number of complaints against Bishop Ioann, a Credo.Press correspondent reports. Clergy of the RPTsMP in the U.S.A. say that Bishop Ioann has already left the territory of the country. (tr. by PDS, posted 29 September 2018)
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