YEKATERINBURG (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th December, 2020) Former schema monk Sergiy, who was banned from the ministry after making controversial statements on COVID-19 being a "pseudo-pandemic," was detained in Russia's central region of Sverdlovsk, a source in the local law enforcement told Sputnik on Tuesday.
"He was detained and will most likely be interrogated," the source said when asked to confirm the ex-monk's detention.
The Sverdlovsk police department told Sputnik they did not have any information to confirm the detention, while the local branch of the Russian Investigative Committee refrained from giving comments. Sputnik was unable to reach out to the Sverdlovsk branch of the Russian Federal Security Service or the local eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Sergiy himself posted a video on Telegram in which he told his fellows that everything was fine with him. In the video, the ex-monk, dressed in religious attire, was sitting at a desk in a room with white walls with a map behind him. Media have opined that he was in the investigative committee.
Addressing his video to the "monastery and all my children," the ex-monk said "Everything is fine with me ... There is no need to do anything. We must live according to the commandments. What has happened � everyone bears their own cross."
The monastery that Sergiy referred to in the video address is a female monastery in Sverdlovsk that he founded and where he continued to preach even after separation from the Church.
The ex-schema monk, whose civil name is Nikolay Romanov, was expelled from the clergy after he continuously incited people to take to the streets and protest against what he described as "ungodly self-isolation" and "Satan's electronic camp," referring to the coronavirus-related quarantine.
In July, Sergiy was fined around 100,000 rubles ($1,350) on administrative charges over the dissemination of false information and incitement of unrest. On October 6, a criminal case was launched into the suspected torture of children on the monastery's territory and professional negligence by oversight authorities. According to the monk's lawyer, Svetlana Gerasimova, two other criminal cases were launched over the violation of the right to freedom of conscience, and religion and arbitrariness.
