December 30, 2020
Reuters
MOSCOW - Police raided a convent near Russia’s Ural Mountains in the early hours of Tuesday and arrested a renegade priest who had seized control of it and allegedly encouraged nuns to commit suicide.
Father Sergiy was taken to Moscow, some 1400 km (870 miles) from the convent, where a court ordered him remanded in custody for two months.
Footage posted online showed a melee of riot police and people shouting outside the convent during the raid.
“They chased us out, chased out all the children, they didn’t let us take warm clothes,” one unnamed nun was quoted as saying by the local E1 media outlet. “They put the priest face down on the floor and beat him with truncheons.”