Ural schism ends as Covid rejectionist and ex-igumen, Sergij Romanov, arrested

He instigated his faithful to resist the "forces of the Antichrist": the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church and the Covid propagandists. For Sergij, the "pseudo-pandemic" is an invention of the Antichrist to imprison believers in "Satan’s electronic concentration camp". The police stormed the Sredneuralsk monastery where the monk was barricaded along with hundreds of nuns. He is accused of pushing even children to commit suicide.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - In the night between December 28 and 29 the excommunicated ex-igumen Sergij (Nikolaj Romanov) was arrested and transferred to Moscow. The Russian National Guard, the Rosgvardija, stormed the Sredneuralsk monastery where he had barricaded himself.

Sergij's lawyer, Svetlana Gerasimova, replied to the assembled journalists that Romanov "has already been taken away, charged with sedition, violation of the right to freedom of conscience" as well as “plagiarism of minors with instigation to suicide ". The Urals "prophet of the apocalypse" had sequestered several children in the monastery defended for months by groups of his followers.

 Romanov had refused to submit to any court, ecclesiastical or civil, regional or federal, and instigated his faithful to resist the "forces of the Antichrist" represented in particular by the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church and the Covid propagandists, considered a deception of the forces dark against true believers. The guards raid led to the arrest of numerous people, "five or six cars" according to Gerasimova and several novices and nuns, who were transferred to the nearby Verkhnaja Pyshma prison.

On his Telegram channel, the spokesman of the Moscow Patriarchate, Vladimir Legojda, expressed sorrow: "It is really a pity that the ex-skhiigumen Sergij and his supporters did not want to listen to the repeated calls of the Church to repent and correct themselves".

Legojda emphasizes that the Church "always prays for her children, especially for those who have strayed from the right path and are lost". He says he is convinced that "the priests of the diocese of Ekaterinburg will do their utmost for a rapid pacification of the Sredneuralsk women's monastery, and for the restoration of a healthy ecclesial life".

The Rosgvardija operation began at one in the morning, according to the Ekaterinburg-online website. The special forces blocked all accesses to the monastery, breaking through the pickets of the occupants and breaking into Romanov's cell, protected by a group of nuns. The whole building was then sequestered (see photo 2-4).

The straw that broke the camals back for the civil and religious authorities was the latest video with a homily by Sergij, in which he asked several of his faithful, including some children, if they were ready to "die for Russia,” with explicit invitations to suicide. On 10 September, the Orthodox Church had already reduced him to the lay state, and therefore excommunicated, the ex-igumen "of the great skhima", that is, of the highest level of monastic profession, for having broken the vows of consecration and an infinite series of canons and ecclesiastical rules.

Romanov had continued to celebrate even after the excommunication, without commemorating either the patriarch or the local bishop in the liturgy, and had declared that he did not want to leave the monastery with its more than 150 nuns. In the last homily he also prophesied that "no force in the world will ever be able to get me out of the monastery, neither the army or the fleet, the airplanes and the helicopters", assuring his followers to "be the precursor of the future Tsar, who will save Russia from perdition”.

Several nuns have abandoned the monastery after the arrest of the ex-igumen, and the ecclesiastical authorities together with the police are looking for them, to prevent them from spreading the "schismatic word" together with the invectives of opposition to anti-Covid health measures, now that mass vaccination has also begun in Russia. Romanov spoke of the "pseudo-pandemic", invented by the Antichrist to subdue true believers in "Satan's electronic concentration camp".