Bishop Gregory (Lourie) of St. Petersburg

[Suaidan]

Alexander,

You have a very large userpic-- the church in the background, is that the St Petersburg church of Gregory Lourie?

[Alexander Kuzmin]

Yes, this church is in St.Petersburg. Bishop Gregory is our rector.

[Barbara]

It was another St Petersburg Church which got threatened and graffitied "Schismatics" or something like that, right ?

I am asking because the facade looks familar. But it's not the same church, I am sure.

[Jean-Serge]

No, it is not the same church.

[Alexander Kuzmin]

No, Barbara, it is not the same church. Here are the news about the church from your question:

Decision to liquidate the Orthodox Enlightenment Center (OEC), a public organization, was passed on December 23 by St. Petersburg City Court, reports Interfax. So far, the whereas of this court decision is not known, but, according to Interfax, it is related to the allegedly faked relics of Saint Nicholas being placed in the chapels owned by OEC and also to the fact that those who wanted to order forty days' prayers for the deceased were asked to pay 3,000 RUR ($90) for it.

As is known, no expert examination of the "authenticity" of the holy relics, such examination being hardly feasible in a secular state, was undertaken in the course of the proceedings on this case which had been initiated by the public prosecutor’s office, reminds Portal-Credo.Ru correspondent. A building on Goncharnaya Street in St. Petersburg which is supposed to be owned by OEC houses the Church of "Consolation in Sorrow and Grief" Icon of the Mother of God which is in the jurisdiction of the Suzdal Synod of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC). Protopresbyter Alexiy Lebedev, senior priest of this church, also provides spiritual guidance to the parishioners of several chapels (without parishioners) owned by OEC in St. Petersburg. A formal reason for the claim for the liquidation of this organization was the fact that it carried out the religious activities not stipulated by its Charter.

The People's Assembly, a nationalist association, started insistently attracting the attention of the public prosecutor’s office to OEC last summer. The association was probably inspired by the recommendations from the St. Petersburg Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Patriarchate of Moscow (ROC). "The origin of the relics is so far unknown. OEC volunteers were offering forty days' prayers for the deceased to the visitors for 3 thousand rubles. They were introducing themselves as the clergymen of the non-existent Orthodox Church of Russia, thus misinforming the credulous visitors and appropriating the money", said E. Anduschenko, head of St. Petersburg branch of the People's Assembly.

[Suaidan]

This is exactly the opposite of things as I understood them.

Last I remember the prosecutor's office was going after your rector: in fact there was an online petition to send to the Russian Federation asking for his defense.

It would seem the accusations have now been shifted to Fr Alexey's church, which I attended. Last I had checked he was a priest in good standing with ROAC proper. We reported on the maltreatment of that church in December. So it seems the charges have been shifted from the schismatic parish to the real one.

How convenient!

[Alexander Kuzmin]

In our case in 2010 it was not a prosecutor's office, but the police (attended by Special Forces) and officers of the so-called Department E ("E" standing for Extremism). But no extremism was found because we do not have it.

Father Alexay has a completely different case. He has problems because he opened 6 chapels in different shop-spaces in St.Petersburg to sell molebens (with no services in these chapels) and he wrote 'Russian Orthodox Church" there - that looked like MP. All 6 chapel were said to have relics of St.Nicholas.
The official reason of closing his organisation is the absence of this activity written in its regulations.
And, by the way, mass-media speaks about his case always mentioning our church in bad words.

Father Roman Novokovsky from ROAC (Zheleznovodsk) wrote that the Head of ROAC Met Theodore tried to stop these chapels that were opened without his blessing, but Father Alexey did not listen.

His parishioners are also against his financial activity and a number of them started to go to us (including both of his readers). Those who say with him are very against his business too. I can show you a video where his current parishioner Nicolai Albertovich shakes hands with those who struggles with this chapels and says "Thank you" for them and says that he goes to communion to Suzdal because of it.