Russia, January 14, 2026
Photo: zona.media
Russian Orthodox churches across the country held their first nationwide moleben aimed at enlightening those who intend to have an abortion on Sunday. January 11 in the Orthodox Church marks the day of remembrance for the 14,000 infant martyrs slain by Herod in Bethlehem.
The text was approved at a Synod session on December 26, 2025, and published on the Moscow Diocese website. It includes passages such as:
That our brothers and sisters, beset by sinful thoughts of child-killing, may come to their senses, and that they may be delivered from this senseless darkness and come to repentance and knowledge of the truth, let us pray to the Lord.
That they may understand the will of the Lord, good and perfect, and that they may not despise one of these little ones, the infants yet to be born, let us pray to the Lord.
Molebens were announced in all churches of various dioceses, and individual churches reported conducting the service, with some distributing leaflets about “the Christian attitude toward motherhood, as well as the spiritual consequences of the sin of child-killing,” reports zona.media.
His Eminence Metropolitan Ambrose of Tver told parishioners before serving the moleben that “every embryo from the moment of conception has DNA and a heartbeat.”
Archpriest Vladimir Kolosov in the Vologda Province recalled Vladimir Lenin: “The first decree that Lenin made—this godless communist who fiercely hated Russia—decided to kill Russian children, to permit abortions. And blood flowed.”
His Eminence Metropolitan Nikodim of Novosibirsk called on women who have had abortions to spend “their lives in prayer for forgiveness and in helping abandoned children.” His Eminence Metropolitan George of Nizhny Novgorod noted that the new moleben will help “heal the sin of child-killing in the mother’s womb,” which now “dominates” the life of the Russian people.
In December 2016, the Russian Synod also approved the text of a moleben of repentance for those who have committed abortion.
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