sergius romanov priest covid-19 russia
Father Romanov
Everyone is dealing with Corona-madness in their own way. In Russia, one priest has decided to take a serious stand over it. How serious this stand becomes remains to be seen, but it could yet provoke a 'schism' within the Orthodox Church - symbolically, if not literally.

Here's Russia Today's somewhat tepid report about the stand-off:
A Russian priest who believes Covid-19 is an invention by evil forces hellbent on "chipping the population" has apparently used Cossack fighters to seal off a women's convent after church authorities prohibited him from preaching.

According to local media sources, Shiigumen Sergius ousted the abbess of the convent, Varvara, along with several nuns, and took control of the building after his ban. Prior to the takeover, he was an informal leader of the community but was subservient to the regional diocese.

Since the incident, the cleric has not allowed local religious leaders to visit, and journalists from the area have claimed that the site is being guarded by Cossacks loyal to Sergius.
That claim is denied by the priest/'protestors'.

It's also interesting that RT opted to call him by his old name, whereas his new name is legally Romanov. Their report continues:
Sergius was forbidden from conducting religious duties at Ekaterinburg's Central Urals Monastery after criticizing the reaction of Russian authorities and Patriarch Kirill to the Covid-19 "pseudo-pandemic." Due to the precarious epidemiological situation, churches in Russia have been ordered to close for the safety of parishioners.

Sergius claimed on many occasions that the pandemic was an excuse to microchip the public, and complained that the closure of churches during the crisis was done under pressure from "the atheistic authorities."
'Chipping the population' was not the primary motive for declaring the pandemic, but the priest is essentially correct in that it in no way justified the lockdowns and mass suffering they caused. The media, as usual, caricatures the dissenting view in a manipulative effort to malign it in readers' eyes.

RT again:
"Mother Varvara, being a novice, built this convent from its first days. The other day, the legal abbess was actually removed from the convent's management by Father Sergius, who is the confessor of the convent," the Ekaterinburg diocese said.

Varvara, the mother superior, had led the community since it was founded in 2005. Interfax reported that she left the compound voluntarily "to avoid unnecessary infighting, to which Father Sergius is prone, and give him the opportunity to come to his senses."

Sergius was due to face a Church trial on June 15, but the date was postponed until June 26. He is charged with disobeying Patriarch Kirill.

The priest, a former police officer who previously spent 13 years in prison for murder, is well known among Russia's Christian community. Notably, he is the former confessor of Russian MP and former Crimean prosecutor Natalia Poklonskaya.
So what appears to be a religious 'hothead' is currently being held up as 'representative' of 'scamdemic' awareness in Russia.

The media - both in Russia and abroad - is of course having a field day with this, universally describing him as a 'Coronvairus-denying priest'.

The Guardian has more details:
A rogue Russian priest who denies the existence of Covid-19 has seized a convent in the Urals region and announced he will only be removed by force.

Father Sergei Romanov stormed the Sredneuralsk convent this week, after being banished by church leaders in April for protesting the closure of churches due to the coronavirus epidemic, which he called a "pseudo-pandemic". [...]

Romanov is a leader of an Orthodox religious cult of "tsar worshippers" and has legally changed his last name to that of Russia's last imperial dynasty. He helped found the Sredneuralsk convent in the early 2000s not far from the site where the Bolsheviks buried the tsar and his family in 1918 and tried to dissolve them in acid. [...]

The fundamentalist group has prominent followers among politicians and sport figures and launched vehement protests against the 2017 film Matilda, which depicted an affair between tsar Nicholas II and ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya. There were several arson attacks targeted against the film's director and a man drove his car into the facade of a cinema.
Indeed, a former Russian national hockey player and Detroit Red Wings star, Pavel Datsyuk, is reportedly among Sergius/Romanov's followers at the convent.

Whoever else is with him, the priest is dug in for a 'fight' - though without guns by the looks of things. From the Moscow Times:
The diocese gave Father Sergei until the next ecclesiastical court date on June 26 to "rectify and repent" the situation.

"I'm not going anywhere... they'll have to chase me out with police and the National Guard," Father Sergei had said earlier Wednesday.

The Orenburg Cossack Army has meanwhile denied reports that its official members have been posted around the monastery's perimeter to guard the site.

"The media reports of Cossacks supporting Father Sergei (Romanov) are disinformation," it wrote on its social media page.
This hasn't stopped the UK's Times from salivating at the prospect of burning the church down and killing everyone inside - presumably for their failure to submit to the Corona World Order:
times priest covid-19 waco
Religious leaders are speaking out against the lockdowns, but their voices are few and far between. Last week, a Catholic Archbishop wrote an open letter in which he - correctly - theologically framed what is taking place via the 'scamdemic' and the 'cultural revolution' as an "infernal deception by the Children of Darkness against the Children of Light."