Who wrote the letter on behalf of Bishop Nektarios of Liveni

A monk driving such a car evokes, to put it mildly, conflicting feelings. Yes, yes, Bishop of Livensky and Maloarkhangelsk Nectary(in the world - Nikolay Seleznev) is a monk, but ascetic life and hermitage do not seem to be his strong point.

He received his new Toyota Land Cruiser V8 SUV as a gift from a local agricultural holding. At least that’s what they say in the Oryol Metropolis. And who did you get the “thieves” numbers from then? The clergyman’s car with the number A008OO57RUS automatically ends up in the “garage” of the cars of the government of the Oryol region - there are the same numbers.

The scandal surrounding the story of demons in the form of a brand new Toyota has been going on for more than a week. According to our sources, the patriarch Kirill personally intervened in the situation with Nektarios. He demanded that his leadership pacify the bishop and stop rocking the situation.

By the way, Kirill, when he was still Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, was also reproached for everything, like the entire Russian Orthodox Church; the Russian Orthodox Church even began to be called LLC under the state. But it’s unlikely that Nektary thinks as clearly as Cyril, who once said very sincerely: “With God it’s either fair or not at all”(1999, boat trip along the Desna).

If you are honest with God, then you don’t have to lie to him at least about your strong faith - he, as the governor of the Oryol region rightly put it, stood up for Nektary Vadim Potomsky, “not a fraer” and sees everything.

Metropolitan Kirill also had luxury SUVs, but he somehow looked harmonious in such cars. This is the same case when a PERSONALITY drives a good car. But what caused the storm of indignation over Nektary’s new clothes? Maybe it just doesn’t “look” in a 6 million car? Doesn't this suit him?..

You can’t argue: a priest who often travels around his estate, along sometimes impassable village roads, certainly needs an SUV. But is it necessary to be so defiantly luxurious when there is so much poverty, grief, tears, hopelessness around? People expect help, wise words, consolation, and heartfelt prayer from a priest.

However, it is unlikely that Father Nektary is close to the people - he got the demonic machine from the richest agricultural holding, which he has been “serving” for a long time.

After such a gift aroused interest from the media, Nektariy received a call from pranksters, to whom he told that in order to receive a Toyota Land Cruiser, he had previously traded in his used Nissan Pathfinder car. A recording of the conversation appeared on YouTube .

“The general director of JSC Agrograd gave me funds for the purchase of a new car. Pavel Tsarev. Moreover, he took my old car from me, which was in a broken state, and traded it in. Therefore, the purchase was not 6 million, as they say, but a total of 3 million rubles were added,”- said Nectarius.

Head of the information and analytical department of the metropolis Evgeny Borisov, “fighting off” the “unbelted” journalists, commented on the situation as follows:

— Jesus Christ himself wore expensive clothes, which were given to him, let’s say, by those people who revered him. Many saints accepted the same thing. For example, John of Kronstadt received expensive vestments, cars, ships, etc. in the same way. This is in no way a characteristic of a person’s spiritual life, if this person carries out public service, obedience to a bishop, as in the case of Bishop Nektariy... Let’s not take this to the point of absurdity.”

Yes, let’s not bring it to the point of absurdity: where are Christ and John of Kronstadt - and where is priest Nektary.

A little about Nektaria: they say that...

They say that Bishop Nektary (born in 1974) is a very poorly educated person. Of all independent education - vocational school-81 in the village of Chulman.

With the appearance of the Bishop of Krasnoyarsk in Krasnoyarsk Antonia at the age of 17 he became a novice and subdeacon of the Intercession Cathedral.

Bishop Anthony of Krasnoyarsk himself (now Metropolitan of Oryol) during his years of study was the personal secretary of Metropolitan Krutitsky Juvenalia, openly called a lover of non-traditional relationships.

Later, Metropolitan Anthony worked in foreign departments - in the Baltic states (Vilno, Kaunas), in Tokyo. Patriarch Alexy, who favored Anthony, in 1990 appointed him to lead one of the richest dioceses - Krasnoyarsk and Yenisei. They say that he was great friends with the aluminum barons - Toley Bykov And Deripaska.

Patriarch Kirill tried to get rid of Metropolitan Anthony and sent him to Oryol in 2011.

Bishop Nektary, a student and favorite of Metropolitan Anthony, had his whole life revolved around the metropolitan.

In absentia, already being the rector of the Trinity Cathedral in Krasnoyarsk, he graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy. And later, in the status of abbot of the Assumption Monastery, he graduated in absentia from the Kyiv Theological Academy and received a candidate's degree in theology.

In 2014, Metropolitan Anthony, through Metropolitan Juvenal, is said to have won the episcopal see for his favorite.

They say that in Orel too, Bishop Nektary is successfully investing in local agribusiness and collecting good money.

At the beginning of 2017, Metropolitan Anthony suffered a stroke, and Bishop Nektary began active work with the goal of occupying the Oryol see.

And finally

A young priest lives in a small Smolensk village with his mother and children. Every day, in any weather, he goes to baptize someone and perform a funeral service for someone. Have funeral services more often.

There was a time when he lived in complete poverty. And there was no one to ask. And suddenly the neighbor's chickens began to come into his yard and lay eggs there. The chickens were not signed, they came running and ran away, and then these eggs literally saved the family from starvation.

Now people come to the priest from everywhere - both believers and atheists. Both rich and poor. Someone gave him a car, someone gave him a festive church robe. But the priest did not believe less because of these gifts. He deserved them. And when he drives his old foreign car along the night road, he always picks up travelers. It's better to be honest with God.

For several days now, news agencies have been reporting that the 42-year-old Bishop of Liven and Maloarkhangelsk Nektary, known as Nikolai Seleznev, has become the owner of a luxury SUV Land Cruiser v8. The story took a new turn when some Oryol media published a letter threatening to go to court for the protection of honor and dignity, which the bishop himself allegedly sent to the editorial office. However, this information was denied by the Oryol Metropolitanate.

Bishop Nektary did not send any letters to the media editorial office. This is false information that was created to discredit us and continue to promote the story with the car,” official representative of the Oryol Metropolis Evgeny Borisov told KP.

What about an SUV? Do you confirm its presence? – we asked.

Yes, the car really exists. But this does not mean at all that it was purchased with donations from believers. This is a gift from one of the enterprises that operates in the Livensky district. The company provides charitable assistance to local churches, an Orthodox gymnasium and more. There is nothing illegal in this gift to the bishop,” said Evgeny Borisov.

Photo: from the Toyota website. Such a car costs about 4 million rubles.

From the point of view of the law, there really are no questions for the bishop. Unlike officials, church representatives have the right to accept any gifts and are not required to declare them. However, believers on social networks and blogs are actively shaming the bishop, saying that a gift is a gift, but the car can be sold, and the money can be donated to the construction of churches or even given to the poor.

But apparently, the Bishop of Liven and Maloarkhangelsk will not agree to this. On the contrary, the SUV has a “beautiful” number plate A 008 OO 57 RUS, only local officials have these.

Every day he has to travel off-road to remote parishes. So a car is a means of transportation, they justify the bishop in the metropolis.

According to the most conservative estimates, such an SUV costs about five million rubles. However, this is not the most expensive car of the Oryol clergy.

In May 2015, a real scandal was caused by the new car of Metropolitan Anthony of Oryol and Bolkhov. Let us remember that then it became known that he was driving around the city in a brand new Lexus, costing about six million rubles. When the luxury car was condemned by believers, the metropolis also cited bad roads and the need to have an SUV.

As KP ​​found out, the Metropolitan still uses this luxury car.

Only very wealthy people can afford such cars,” automobile expert Ivan Ozerov explained to KP. – The annual tax on such SUVs exceeds 30 thousand rubles. Don't forget about maintenance costs, as well as fuel costs.

The story of a bishop from the Oryol Metropolitanate, who was given a Toyota Land Cruiser V8 SUV worth about 6 million rubles, received an unexpected continuation. The day before, the editors of the regional publication Oryol News received a letter on the official letterhead of the diocese (available to Gazeta.Ru), in which Bishop Nektariy of Livensky and Maloarkhangelsk allegedly stated that he was extremely outraged by the article about the bishop’s car posted on the publication’s website.

“Such antics undermine the spiritual and moral foundations of our society, casting a shadow on the Holy Church and its honest servants. Do not hope that your public lie will remain unanswered by the Russian Orthodox Church,” the letter says (the author’s spelling and punctuation have been preserved. - Gazeta.Ru).

The author of the letter threatened that otherwise he would be forced to contact law enforcement agencies and bring the persons allegedly insulting him to criminal liability under Part 1 of Art. 148 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (public actions expressing clear disrespect for society and committed with the aim of insulting the religious feelings of believers), the maximum liability under this article is imprisonment for up to a year. The appeal was signed by Bishop Nektariy of Liven and Maloarkhangelsk; the paper bears a seal and signature.

News Agency "Oryol News"/newsorel.ru

After the publication of the appeal online, even the governor of the Oryol region, Vadim Potomsky, reacted to the scandal. He condemned the journalists and called their claims against the bishop’s expensive car unlawful.

“We must read the Bible: judge not, lest ye be judged. And when journalists start asking questions about who among the clergy lives how, I have one question: who authorized them to ask this question? And then, where there is a criterion - this is possible for a priest, but this is not.

Did he offend anyone? Did he preach the sermon incorrectly? Are there fewer parishioners coming to his parish? Is he not engaged in the restoration of the temple? - Potomsky said on the radio station "Moscow speaks" .

According to the official, Bishop Nektary is in “hierarchical subordination”, and if necessary, this issue can be resolved within the metropolis.

“God is not a fraer. He sees everything. And there is only one judgment: God's judgment. For us, this goes all the way back to the patriarch: he doesn’t have the right hours, he doesn’t live like that, he drives the wrong cars,” summed up Potomsky.

At the same time, the Russian Orthodox Church called the scandal an exclusively diocesan matter and stated that the bodies of the Russian Orthodox Church would not participate in its resolution.

At the same time, the Oryol Metropolis denied the information that Bishop Nektary addressed journalists, calling the letter received by the editor a provocation.

“There was no appeal from Bishop Nektary to Oryol News.

We are dealing with a dirty provocation, a forgery.

On the published image, only the text and signature are visible - there is no header, this is not an official form, there are no details. Who might be involved in this should ask Oryol News,” explained Evgeny Borisov, head of the information and analytical department of the Oryol Metropolis, to Gazeta.Ru.

“In the morning it turned out that Bishop Nektary had no complaints about our publication, and the letter was a fake. In this case, there is no subject of dispute, we are not going to sue. But we have no doubt about the authenticity of the letter - it has all the details, moreover,

According to our sources in the Oryol Metropolis, yesterday the bishop was recommended to refuse to write this appeal, so we expected exactly such a reaction,” Volin said.

Let us remind you that the scandal surrounding Bishop Nektary erupted after information appeared in the media that he had acquired a Toyota Land Cruiser V8 car, the cost of which was about 6 million rubles. At the same time, the SUV was equipped with license plates, which in the region are usually equipped with government vehicles.

The press service of the Oryol Metropolitanate previously reported to Gazeta.Ru that the car was donated to the clergyman by one of the local agricultural holdings. The bishop did not spend his own money, and especially the money of the diocese, on the purchase of an SUV.

“Business entities in our country have the right to perform legal actions with property. They made such a decision, what is the informational reason for this? We cannot prohibit people from making such gifts,” explained the head of the information and analytical department of the Oryol Metropolis, Evgeny Borisov.

According to the representative of the metropolis, the bishop must promptly carry out his duties every day, while it is often difficult to drive on the roads of the Oryol region in an ordinary passenger car.

“This is a deep province, can you imagine what kind of roads there are in the province? Sometimes they just don't exist. In the 19th century, it took a week to travel by carriage to the remote outskirts of the diocese, but now we live in a different world,” stated the metropolitanate, adding that owning an expensive car does not bother parishioners at all.

The secretary of Bishop Nektary of Liveno and Maloarkhangelsk, Father Alexander, claims that the letter on behalf of the bishop demanding that an article about his luxury SUV be removed from the website of a local publication and threats of prosecution under the article of insulting the feelings of believers is a fake.

“I, as the secretary of the diocesan bishop, officially declare that Bishop Nektary did not write any letters to Oryol News. That is, this letter posted on the site is directly fake,” the clergyman said on air "Echo of Moscow".

The bishop's secretary suggested that the bishop's signature and letterhead were taken from another document. “I don’t know who composed this letter, who sent it to Oryol News, how it ended up there, but I assure you with confidence that the Liven diocese, Bishop Nektary and none of the employees wrote this letter,” he emphasized, adding that the diocese and the bishop have no claims to Oryol News and do not intend to go to court.

At the same time, the bishop’s secretary noted that the editors did not contact the diocese for an official comment and published unverified information.

Let us recall that a week ago, Oryol journalist Denis Volin, in an article on the Open Russia website, said that the head of the Liven and Maloarkhangelsk diocese, who is a monk, purchased a Land Cruiser v8 car worth 6 million rubles. The Oryol Metropolis, commenting on the information, noted that a car is not a purchase, but a gift, and recalled that Jesus Christ “also walked in expensive clothes” received from admirers.

The article was reprinted with abbreviations by the Oryol News portal. The day before, a scan of a letter from Bishop Nektariy appeared on the same website, which stated that “such antics undermine the spiritual and moral foundations of our society, casting a shadow on the Holy Church and its honest servants” (style and punctuation, including numerous errors, are preserved hereinafter .- Note website). “I am extremely outraged by your deceitful and offensive article posted on your Internet resource regarding My service to the Russian Orthodox Church and the people of God!” - added the priest.

At the end of the letter, the bishop states that he is giving the editors “the only chance to correct everything” and remove information concerning him “from your immoral media.” At the same time, Nektariy asked to delete a survey dedicated to him, in which readers are invited to express their opinion on how they feel about priests who own expensive property.

Journalist Denis Volin insisted on Echo of Moscow that he tried to get comments from the bishop, but it was impossible to contact him. He stated that he had several letters on behalf of Bishop Nektary, and the style of their presentation coincided with the message that Oryol News received.

“If you look at the comments on this news on the Internet, it becomes clear that if someone offends the feelings of believers, it is clearly not journalists,” Volin added.

“The letter came to us in the mail yesterday at 16.50. It came on diocesan letterhead with the signature of Bishop Nektary and with a seal. We personally have no reason to doubt the authenticity of this letter. In addition, our specialists have now checked this letter: the seal, signature and words on the picture was not superimposed. That is, this is a photo of a real document. Is it a fake or not a fake, whether Nektary sent it or not Nektary - then we need to talk only about what is,” the journalist clarified in a commentary to the radio station “Moscow Speaks”.

Let us add that the Oryol Metropolis officially stated that they do not see an “informational reason” in such a situation. “This car is a gift from one of the agricultural holdings. The gift is connected with the fact that the bishop carries out the bishop’s service, visits the most remote villages at any time of the year and in any weather. There is no manifestation of money-grubbing in this,” said the head of the information and analytical department of the metropolis Evgeny Borisov.

At the same time, anonymous Open Russia sources in the metropolis expressed bewilderment at the luxury car, which received a “government” series license plate.

"Each church transfers the so-called diocesan tax to the diocese. The amounts for each church per month are different: on average from 20 thousand to 400 thousand rubles. Depending on income. Then the tax to the patriarchy is separated from this money, several million, and the rest the money should go to public church work. Youth camps, brotherhoods, assistance to the needy (social diocesan department), repairs, construction, and so on. And here they buy cars like this,” noted the interlocutor of Open Russia.

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• source: www.dw.com

It stopped being funny. “They gave it to me”, “I traded in my old car and paid extra”, “I need a special license plate so that the police will let me in for events”... Bishop Nektariy of Liven and Maloarkhangelsk (in the world Nikolai Seleznev), born in 1974, made people talk about himself the whole country.

"Only" three million

Let's call a spade a spade: the bishop from the Oryol region, the happy owner of a Toyota Land Cruiser V8, who found himself in the center of media attention, showed himself to be a short-sighted church leader. An aggressive attempt to silence the journalists of the Orlovskie Vesti newspaper, who published material about the bishop's elite SUV, the clumsy excuses of the diocesan press secretary, the mobilization to defend the honor and dignity of the bishop of the Oryol governor Vadim Potomsky, a character worthy of a separate column speaking in thieves' jargon - all these ridiculous actions turned the publication of a provincial newspaper into an all-Russian sensation.

Actually, one phrase about the fact that in fact the car cost the bishop not six, but “only” three million rubles - and this in a region that is in the sixth ten in terms of gross regional product - should have been enough for the quick appointment of a bishop Livensky as the abbot of some distant and inaccessible monastery, where his arrogance and stupidity would not be so noticeable.

The incident hardly pleased Patriarch Kirill, who was already fending off public criticism every day. Even those publicists who usually rush to defend the honor and dignity of the church hierarchy are trying to distance themselves from the hapless Nektarios.

The main thing is loyalty

However, you can rest assured that when the scandal subsides, Bishop Nektary will continue to ride along the broken rural roads of the Oryol region in his jeep. Like diplomat Vladimir Safronkov, who became famous in April for his boorish speech at the UN Security Council, the bishop faces no consequences. He is loyal to his superiors, and this is the most important thing in the Russian church, as well as in the Russian government. Moreover, the young bishop (he was ordained a bishop at the age of 41) is a typical product of the so-called era of “church revival”, which the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church loves to talk about.

A graduate of a village vocational school in Yakutia graduated from both a theological seminary and a theological academy in absentia (the latter with the degree of candidate of theology awarded in absentia). But even before being tonsured as a monk, he successfully labored “in economic matters,” as reported in his official biography.

Several years ago, Patriarch Kirill decided to significantly increase the number of metropolises and dioceses. Officially, in order to relieve the burden on more than a hundred bishops and bring the episcopate closer to the believers. And unofficially, also to create a strong network of newly minted bishops loyal to the primate. They, in addition, must monitor the state of local church finances more closely than before. The Oryol ruler is one of these appointees.

Temptation by money and power

Finance is the most opaque and closed part of church life. However, in general, it is clear how the system works: money comes from parishes to the deanery, from the deanery to the diocese, from the diocese to the metropolitanate, and from there to Moscow. At every stage, something is left to the local hierarchy. And at each level the system of relations that exists between the church and the state at the national level is reproduced. The “president-patriarch” connection at the regional level, as a rule, corresponds to the “governor-bishop” or “governor-metropolitan” scheme.

Bishops, in fact, if not by official status, belong to the regional ruling elites. Many of them acquire the same habits as officials. The temptation of money and power is too strong. In this sense, there are more than a dozen “Nectarii” in Russia - boorish, poorly brought up and educated, self-confident, power-hungry and at the same time always preoccupied with demonstrating loyalty so as not to lose their position.

Church of the Empire

The story of the Oryol bishop is an illustration of the main thing that is wrong with the Russian Orthodox Church, first of all, with the hierarchy. It, in the figurative expression of publicist Sergei Chapnin, is ready and even actively wants to be, first of all, the “church of the empire,” offering the authorities and the masses “Orthodoxy without Christ” - one of the main elements of the Russian imperial ideology implanted by the Kremlin.

Today this symbiosis of the church hierarchy, the state apparatus, corruption and moral decay seems unshakable. However, the inevitable change of the political regime in Russia will deal a blow to the entire system, including the church hierarchy, which in the eyes of citizens is turning into one of the elements of power. A hundred years ago, the Russian Church paid a terrible price for the closeness with the state imposed on it by Peter the Great. This could very well happen again. At his Livensky and Maloarkhangelsk cathedras, with his jeep and the sponsors who “donated” it, Bishop Nektary, to the best of his ability, unfortunately, brings this unpleasant outcome closer.

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