Father Grigory, a Russian Orthodox priest serving a village outside of St. Petersburg, views his current situation as akin to that of the early Christians who were persecuted by the Romans.
"A prefect and some Christian could live on the same street, and nothing would happen to the Christian until the prefect writes on an official form that the man is a Christian," explained Grigory, who requested that his real name be withheld for fear of repercussions. "Then a case would be opened. That is how it is now. Until someone writes, nothing happens. But as soon as there is a denunciation, they go through your finances and visit your workplace. Then you are charged with 'discrediting the Russian authorities.'"
"When we discuss what is happening these days, we speak like in the Harry Potter books – about 'he who must not be named,'" he added, referring to Russian President Vladmir Putin.
Grigory is one of an unknown number of Russian priests who quietly oppose Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and Putin's increasingly authoritarian and jingoistic policies. They are struggling to keep their positions and their ties to their communities even as their consciences push them to oppose the Russian Orthodox Church's official support for the war and for Putin -- whose rule the church's leader, Patriarch Kirill, once called a "miracle of God.
"I act as a partisan whenever I can," Grigory said.
Belarusian theologian Natallya Vasilevich -- the founder of Christians Against War, which monitors repressions against Christians of all confessions in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus for their anti-war positions and provides assistance to victims -- says there are "many" such priests in Russia.
"When priests speak out against war, they do it without attracting attention," she said. "They are simply trying to save their church and their community from this virus, the infection of misanthropy."
"Under these circumstances, nonparticipation in evil has become a very important act," Vasilevich added.
'It Was My Duty'
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill has long been a champion of the war and a close ally of Putin's, turning a blind eye to his authoritarian ways while relishing his promotion of social conservatism. In the early days of the war, the Patriarchate ordered priests to pray for peace, but in September it reworded the prayer to instead appeal for Russia's victory. Priests have been encouraged to help muster troops and to bless them as they head for the front.
Kirill has said "sacrifice in the course of carrying out your military duty washes away all sins."
Archpriest Andrei Tkachev, for example, has developed a massive social media following -- more than 1.5 million followers on Telegram -- with his fiery support of the war and his insistence that Russia is "the new Israel" which is "hated by God's enemies."
But in March 2022, a group of Orthodox priests issued an open letter calling for an end to the war. Since then, nearly 300 have signed it.
Father Aleksandr, who also leads a rural church about an hour and a half outside of St. Petersburg and who also asked that his name be changed for this story, was among the original signatories.
"As a priest, as a person with a certain public role, I had to announce my position," Aleksandr told RFE/RL about the letter. "It was my duty."
After the letter was published, Aleksandr said, he was summoned to a private meeting at which he was pressured to give his word that he would not sign any more letters. He was also instructed not to make public statements about the war.
"I gave my word," he said. "And there have been no more meetings since."
Some priests, however, have been swept up in the general crackdown on dissent that has been ratcheted up as the war has dragged on. In March 2022, Father Ioann Burdin was fined after state authorities claimed he "discredited the armed forces," becoming the first Russian punished under a law that was hastily adopted in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion and that has become a key element in the crackdown since. Afterward, Burdin was removed from his post following denunciations by conservative Orthodox activists.
Aleksandr said a local resident has launched a similar effort to pressure the church to remove him.
"A person whom I do not know has been collecting signatures in our little village against me," Aleksandr said. "Some parishioners told me that such a letter exists. But as far as I know, no one has signed it."
'His Brain Finally Kicked In'
Since 2014, when Moscow occupied the Ukrainian region of Crimea and fomented a separatist conflict in parts of eastern Ukraine, parishioners have been coming to Grigory, seeking his blessing for their plans to volunteer to fight in Ukraine's Donbas region.
The priest said he tries to convince them to change their minds instead.
"I definitely saved one," Grigory told RFE/RL. "And I'm proud of that. He has five children, and he was going to volunteer! He'd already submitted his documents, but he took them back. His brain finally kicked in."
"The main reason why they go to the war is because they don't have jobs," he added.
Aleksandr says he does not bless volunteers because such rites are for people who are in the throes of making a decision, rather than those who have already chosen their path.
Priests who oppose the war live in constant fear of being defrocked, said Aleksandr, which can happen "at the stroke of a pen."
"My job as a priest is to give people, as best as I can, direction on how to save their souls under the present conditions," he mused. "If a person is constantly angry at others and the world around him, if he is gnawed by feelings of envy, oppressed by despondency, if he is frightened or oppressed, then it is my job to somehow, as they say, raise him up off his knees."
'How To Breathe Under Water'
Andrei Kordochkin is a Russian Orthodox priest at a church in Madrid, Spain, who has also been denounced and reprimanded for his anti-war statements.
Kordochkin was a co-author of the 2022 letter against the war, which he says has been criticized from being "insufficiently radical" in its condemnation of the war and avoids terms like "aggression" and "invasion."
"But the goal of the church is always fostering repentance," he said in defense of its message. "It can't be offensive or degrading. It can't stand as a judge over people because ultimately we all stand before God."
Kordochkin believes there is a significant number of anti-war clerics working in Russia.
"I know many of them personally," he said. "They are absolutely against the war, but they face a hard choice: In order to speak publicly, they would have to emigrate."
Otherwise, he said, they could face arrest and prison like Father Ioann Kurmoyarov, who has been held in St. Petersburg since July 2022 on charges of "discrediting" the Russian armed forces.
Kordochkin added that priests have been chastened by the case of Father Ioann Koval, a Moscow priest who was defrocked in May for changing the text of the obligatory prayer On Holy Rus to plead for "peace" instead of for "victory."
"In that case, it wasn't just a judgment of him," Kordochkin said. "It was a judgment on all of us. We all were made to understand what is allowed and what is forbidden."
The plight of anti-war Orthodox priests in Russia is reminiscent of a lyric by Russian rock legend Boris Grebenshchikov in which he asks God to "teach us how to breathe under water," Kordochkin said.
"These words perfectly convey the current situation," he said. "There are no right decisions under these circumstances. We are experiencing the rapid radicalization of society, so there is no public place left for dissent. And this is true both of society and of the church."
