Moscow, April 28, 2023
Photo: u-f.ru
After more than two years, the ecclesiastical court decision to defrock Archdeacon Andrei Kuraev has finally come into force, returning him to the status of a layman.
Formerly an influential figure in the Russian Church whose books brought many amongst the intelligentsia to the Church, Archdeacon Andrei has upset many in recent years with repeated inflammatory statements made about the Church in the media and on his personal LiveJournal blog. In late 2013, he was dismissed from his position at the Moscow Theological Academy for his continued agitation.
Archdeacon Andrei was suspended by the Patriarch on April 29, 2020, after he insulted the memory of Archpriest Alexander Ageikin, the former rector of the Theophany Cathedral in Moscow who reposed in the Lord on April 21 that year due to complications from the coronavirus. In late December 2020, the ecclesiastical court of the Moscow City Diocese found him guilty of blasphemy and slander against the Church. Kuraev asked for the case to be postponed several times, and in the end, he still never appeared in court. The court later denied his appeal, saying it found no cause for review.
In April 2021, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill confirmed the Court’s decision, though he postponed its implementation to give the cleric time to repent.
After he was suspended, Kuraev had declared that he didn’t care because he almost never serves anyways and just wants to spend time with his grandchildren.
He has also publicly pondered turning to the Patriarchate of Constantinople to overturn the decisions of the Moscow Diocesan Court.
In a decree issued today, Pat. Kirill brought the defrocking of Kuraev into force:
To the suspended cleric of the Moscow Diocese Archdeaon Andrei Vyacheslav Kuraev
As more than two years have elapsed since the decision of the Moscow Diocesan Court to remove you from sacred orders and the moratorium on the publication of the given decree with the aim of providing you with time to rethink your position and return to the path of the Church, and as you have shown no signs of repentance either in word or deed, including that you have not ceased your destructive activities
—the aforementioned moratorium is hereby terminated and, in accordance with decisions No. 50-54-2020 of 12/29/2020 and No. 53-57-2021 of 03/04/2021 of the Moscow Diocesan Court, you are expelled from holy orders.
+KIRILL, PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL RUSSIA
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