Russian Orthodox Priest Tortured and Murdered for $200,000 in Cash
Created: 28.07.2005 06:25 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:51 MSK
MosNews.Com
Moscow region authorities are continuing their investigation related to the brutal torture and murder of Archimandrite Herman, the abbot of the Voznesenskaya Davydova Pustyn monastery, 85 km from the Russian capital. The priest was found dead in his cell in the monastery on July 26.
His body was tied up, and, according to law enforcement officials, it appeared that Father Herman had been tortured before he was murdered. For reasons yet unclear to the investigation, it took fellow monks two hours to notify the authorities after they found the body around 2:20 p.m., the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily newspaper reported on Thursday.
According to the latest police findings, the abbot’s murderers took $200,000 in cash from a safe box in his room. They didn’t bother to check his desk drawer, though, missing an additional $5,000 that detectives found later.
Moscow region’s governor Boris Gromov said in a statement that he was taking the investigation under his personal control.
Voznesenskaya Davydova Pustyn monastery happens to be one of the richest Orthodox church institutions in the Moscow eparchate, because of donations it receives from various private sponsors. Its cemetry hosts, among others, the grave of Anton Malevsky, one of Russia’s most infamous mobsters, who died in 2001 in South Africa after his parachute folded at an altitude of 100 metres above ground. Another grave at the same cemetery contains the remains of Gennady Nedoseka, who used to head the Chekhov district mafia, until his death in a road accident in November 2004, at the age of 39.