Father Aleksei used to anoint Russian military equipment with holy water at a base just south of Moscow. These days, instead of ministering to Russian troops, he's preaching to middle-aged clients in San Francisco about "how to be healthy, beautiful," and keep their muscles spry.
A threat of prosecution for his public criticism of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is championed by the top leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church -- prompted this transformation from cleric to health coach. Aleksei's real name has been withheld at his request due to security concerns.
His experience is not unique. Though no official data exists for the number of Russian Orthodox priests who have resigned or emigrated after challenging the dominant Russian church's support for the invasion, a May investigation by Novaya Gazeta Europe, an independent, Latvia-based outlet, found that the Russian Orthodox Church and Russian security services have taken measures to silence at least 59 priests since February 2022 for their anti-war views.
Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has treated Russia's assault on Ukraine as, quite literally, a "holy" war. The Russian Orthodox Church has instructed its priests to read in their services a prayer for "holy Rus" and to pray for Russia's victory. The patriarch said in a September 2023 sermon that dying in the war as a soldier "washes away all sins."
Kirill has not publicly addressed the resignations or emigration of priests who disagree with this stance. Current Time could not reach the Moscow Patriarchate for comment.
Though the patriarch has stated that the church does "not fear a conversation" about internal problems, four priests interviewed by Current Time said they sensed no option but to leave the Russian Orthodox Church over their anti-war views -- and to reinvent themselves, often abroad.
Father Andrei: The Russian Orthodox Church 'Is Not A Monolith'
In 2022, Andrei Kordochkin faced a test of his faith: He was a senior priest at Madrid's lone Russian Orthodox church, Santa Maria Magdalena, and secretary of the Russian Orthodox Church's Spanish-Portuguese diocese. But he did not support Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and refused to retract his views.
"If I say that murdering people is not an acceptable form of confrontation, that's not my opinion, that's my faith," said Kordochkin, who co-signed a clerical appeal against the war in March 2022.
He said the conflict is "a crime against both the Ukrainian and Russian people."
Nonetheless, in late 2022, 160 individuals complained to the patriarchate that Kordochkin's failure to pray for the Russian authorities constituted "outrageous, anti-Christian activity."
Only a few of the signatories were his actual parishioners, the core of whom were Ukrainian, he claimed.
Expecting his suspension from clerical duties, the archpriest resigned in late 2023 and moved with his family to Germany. The Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, a federation of German Protestant denominations, is financing his postdoctoral studies at the University of Gottingen. Twice a month, he ministers to another Eastern Orthodox congregation in the Netherlands.
With another Russian Orthodox priest in Germany, Kordochkin co-founded a project, Mir Vsem! (Peace for Everyone!), that uses online donations to support Russian Orthodox priests whose anti-war stance has cost them their jobs.
Showing that the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church are not "a monolith that wholeheartedly supports dictatorship and war" is also part of the goal.
Priests speaking out against the war is "a refusal to morally justify evil," he stressed.
Father Iakov: An Independent Orthodox Church In Kazakhstan
One of the anti-war priests Mir Vsem! helps monthly is Kazakhstan's Iakov Vorontsov, a former hieromonk at Almaty's Ascension Cathedral who has proposed that the predominantly Muslim country form a self-governing Orthodox church of its own.
On July 15, the state-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported that Patriarch Kirill had defrocked Vorontsov, whose clerical name is Father Iakov, for allegedly dodging disciplinary hearings and "ignoring all attempts to contact him."
Vorontsov, whose Facebook page describes him as an "agent of God," claims the church gave him no chance to answer the charges.
"[F]or me, the Russian Orthodox Church, as it exists now, is not a church," he said before the decision. "It's some kind of earthly organization standing up for the interests of a particular ethnic group."
"This model of authoritarianism that Patriarch Kirill is building does not suit us" in Kazakhstan, he added.
In June 2023, Vorontsov resigned from his post after calling for the Russian Orthodox Church to galvanize Russian-Ukrainian peace talks, and, he claims, being ordered to state in writing that "Kazakhstan should help Russia."
So far, his project to form an independent Autocephalous Kazakh Orthodox Church has not progressed. The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which has the status of "first among equals" in relation to numerous branches of Orthodox Christianity, has responded to his request to recognize the Kazakh church. The Ministry of Culture and Information's Committee on Religious Affairs has said that it will support his initiative if it has 50 "coreligionists."
Making ends meet is a challenge: Aside from Mir Vsem!'s donations, his mother has rented out her apartment to help tide the family over. Vorontsov also earns some money by copywriting for ads and editing books.
Yet despite the challenges, he says he has no plans to leave Kazakhstan. "My flock is here. Should I abandon people who trust me?"
Father Grigory: The Power Of Positive Thinking
When Moscow-backed separatists staged an armed uprising in 2014 in Father Grigory's native Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, he kept his mouth shut. "I didn't believe this would escalate into something completely insane," he said.
At the time, he was ministering to a large parish in southwestern Russia's Saratov region.
But in 2022, when Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he pushed back. He decided not to read the patriarch's prayer for "holy Rus." The omission, he said, was noticed.
Though there "was no detention, knock on the door, or snitching" to the security services, "it was understood that this wouldn't last for long," he recalled.
In October 2022, after 13 years in Saratov, Grigory resigned his post and left the country with his family and their dog.
He now is studying at Yerevan's Russian-Armenian University for a master's degree in positive psychotherapy, which emphasizes reframing challenges in positive terms.
Grigory has adopted that outlook himself. He believes his calling remains as a priest, even if he no longer serves in the Russian Orthodox Church.
When not studying psychotherapy, he ministers at a Georgian Orthodox Church attended by Russian migrants in Yerevan. He also counsels Ukrainian refugees.
Mir Vsem! provides an unspecified amount of financial support.
He has no plans to return to Russia, which he describes as a "splintered and frayed" country. Instead, he is learning Armenian.
"It turns out that you can live, and not struggle," he said.
Father Aleksei: California Dreaming
Father Aleksei, the Californian health coach, says trying to figure out how to change the Russian Orthodox Church leadership's pro-war views only depressed him. He increasingly identifies with agnosticism.
After serving 13 years as a priest in a village church in the Moscow region's Podolsky district, Aleksei, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, resigned in March 2022 after unknown individuals warned him that his negative comments about Russia's military capabilities could lead to prosecution.
He worried that reading prayers "for the war" and "for Russia" would make him an accomplice in the bloodshed, which he had denounced to parishioners as "suicidal and wrong."
Since leaving the church, he, his wife, and their three children have lived in Georgia, where he worked as a novice data analyst, and Turkey.
While abroad, he learned he had been banned from other clerical posts, he said.
Mir Vsem! provided the funds for the family to travel from Mexico to the United States, where he petitioned for political asylum.
To make ends meet, he now delivers food as well as coaches middle-aged Californians on their health -- a calling tied to his education in nursing.
His family, he claims, depends on food banks.
But having moonlighted as a priest in construction and organizing children's parties, he takes his career changes in stride.
His focus remains on the future: Among his plans are a book about his life as a priest and a musical album about the later part of Putin's quarter-century in power.
