Murdered Priest’s Head Put on Altar

MURDERED PRIEST’S HEAD PUT ON ALTAR

A priest who opened the first Orthodox chapelin a small eastern Siberian town was killed in a cruel ritualistic murderby a wanderer he once befriended, police said.

The man, armed with a pick he made from a weldingtool, came to the home of Hieromonk Grigory, 50, at 3 a.m. Tuesday, saidColonel Ivan Panov, chief of Evenk district police.

He stabbed the priest, whose lay name was GennadyYakovlev, in the heart and neck, and then cut off his head with a pocketknife, breaking the knife, Panov said.

The man, who gives his name as Roman Krishnin,carried the severed head into the chapel adjoining the priest’s home, circledthe altar leaving a ring of blood on the floor and placed the head on thealtar, Panov said.

He was detained later Tuesday morning and confessed,the police chief said. “He said he had had an order from his god, Krishna,”Panov said by telephone from Tura, a town of about 6,000 in the Evenk autonomousdistrict of the Krasnoyarsk region.

Panov said he suspected Roman had assumed thename Krishnin after the Indian divinity Krishna, who is revered by HareKrishna, but he doubted he was a member of the religious cult. “I readabout this faith, they don’t teach violence,” he said.

Panov said the suspect had no documents. He isbelieved to have come to Tura a year and half ago by foot from the Tyumenregion, about 1,000 kilometers away, where he grew up in a hunter’s family.

“Father Grigory, the kind soul, may he rest inpeace, had hosted him, given him warmth, he even lived in his house fora long time,” the police chief said. “They had disputes about faith.”

Russian Hare Krishnas were alarmed by early pressreports that a Hare Krishna had committed the murder and feared it mayignite hostility toward them. Sergei Zuyev, head of the Center of KrishnaConsciousness Societies in Russia, issued a statement Thursday saying Romanhad never been connected with Hare Krishna and emphasizing that its teachings”exclude any violence not only toward men, but even toward animals.”

Journalist Svetlana Valeriyeva was at Roman’sfirst interrogation. “In my view, he is a normal man, well-spoken,” Valeriyevasaid. “He said that he had to purify himself and killed Father Grigoryfor the good of others.”

The death deeply shocked the town, and a memorialservice Wednesday attracted many people. The burial is planned for Friday.”We see the tragedy as a consequence of wide advertising of all sorts ofpseudo-religiousness, a return to the wild pagan cults of satanism andcultivation of new types of polytheism,” a statement issued by the Krasnoyarskdiocese said.

In 1993, three monks at the Optina Pustyn Monasteryin the Kaluga region were stabbed on Easter night by a former monasteryemployee who said he could not resist an “internal voice” telling him tokill the monks.

“The Moscow Times”
Andrei Zolotov Jr.