leadership over what it calls "the moral degradation" of Russian society.
Village priest Oleg Stupichkin was killed by thieves following Christmas Eve services, marked by the Russian Orthodox Church on January 6, just a month after a colleague was murdered.
"Unfortunately in recent years such cynicism and cruelty in regards to clergymen has already occurred, which is evidence of the moral degradation of society," wrote Patriarch Alexei II in a letter of condolence to Archbishop Vikenty of the Yekaterinburg diocese, in which Stupichkin served. The letter was reportedly posted on the Moscow Patriarchate’s Web site, www.patriarhia.ru
Police have arrested two suspects, both unemployed local residents with criminal records and in their early 30s, Ecumenical News International (ENI) reported. Police also recovered some of the 21 icons that were stolen, which one senior cleric said had little worth.
CHURCH RECTOR
Stupichkin, the rector of the church of Saints Peter and Paul, which was being restored in the village of Neivo-Shaitanskoye, was killed after the thieves, posing as worshippers, asked to speak to him.
Instead they proceeded to take icons off the wall and attacked the priest when he tried to intervene, investigators said. After killing him they tried to set him on fire with candle oil
to cover up the crime, ENI reported. The village where he served is near Alapayevsk, where relatives of Tsar Nicholas II were brutally killed after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
In December, priest Andrei Nikolayev, rector of a village church in the Tver Oblast province, died with his wife and three children after their house burned down in what ENI described as "a mysterious fire."
PROTECTION REQUESTED
Nikolayev had asked before his death for protection from thieves who plagued his church. Stupichkin, 40, is survived by his wife and four children. He was killed during a holiday period that for many Russians turns into a prolonged drinking time, which often ends tragically, ENI said.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Christmas on January 7 has once again become an official holiday. Unofficially, especially in big cities like Moscow, Russians also use December 25 as an extra excuse for celebration, Russians say. (With BosNewsLife Monitoring).
