The sister of the deceased told Novye Izvestia was it easy to compel the sentence.
Julia Suntsova
On March 2, the Shuisky City Court sentenced hieromonch Protoleon (Sergey Viktorovich Belozertsev). He was found guilty under Part 4 of Art. 264 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ( Violation of the rules of the road and the operation of vehicles, resulting in the death of a person by negligence, committed by a person in a state of intoxication).
The court sentenced him to 4 years of imprisonment in a penal colony.
In October 2017, the clergyman, according to his own statements, drank only a glass of wine, got behind the wheel and ran into a cyclist at an intersection, a 55-year-old resident of Shuya, Yelena Sizikova. With numerous associated injuries, the woman was taken to intensive care. On the ninth day, she died without leaving a coma.
The verdict has not yet entered into legal force, an appeal must be scheduled by April 12. A complaint against the court verdict was filed by two lawyers of the defendant and a prosecutor who asked for 4.8 years of imprisonment for the cleric who committed the fatal accident.
Yelena Sizikova's sister Larisa Kuptsova, recognized as a victim in the case, told Novy Izvestia how the investigation and trial of the clergyman had gone and why the trial against the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church had dragged on.
“The fight against the hieromonch, or rather with his two highly paid lawyers, was unequal from the very beginning. They came to trial only three years later. But worse than that, they did not want to start a criminal case either. A year after my sister's death, we sought an official investigation. The situation was reversed only after contacting the prosecutor's office and the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Bastrykin. Major General Bulaev came from him, and at a personal reception I said that the check was going sluggishly. He promised to take action and write to his receptionist if nothing changes in three months. Only after that did something move, ”says the sister of the deceased.
The hieromonch did not admit his guilt in the crime, although he partially paid for the funeral.
The court appointed him 1 million 100 thousand rubles - he owes this compensation to the injured party for causing moral damage. So far, the family has not seen this money from the priest, although he did not skimp on his two lawyers who worked for three years and had to spend, according to Larisa Kuptsova's assumptions, at least 3.5 million rubles.
“Two months after Lena’s death, in January, Sergey Viktorovich came to our house with his mentor, the press secretary of the Kineshma diocese, Archpriest Andrey Yefanov, and they arranged a bargain: 500 thousand rubles and you, they say, remove all claims from us. Although this article does not provide for the reconciliation of the parties, the acceptance of money would serve as a mitigating circumstance for him when making a decision. We refused handouts. After that, throughout the rest of the years, there was complete indifference to the family. He never contacted us, did not find out how the 88-year-old mother is doing, having lost her daughter, who, in fact, was her nurse and her right hand in everything”, - says Larisa Kuptsova.
Father Protoleon seemed to have no doubt at all that the case would be closed. He was sure that he would not sit down, or, in the worst case for him, everything would end with a suspended sentence. Even in 2019, he looked over-optimistic about his future - he entered a theological seminary. Now, according to the decision of the Church Court, he has been removed from the priesthood, but they will be allowed to him in 7 years and, apparently, he does not lose hope of returning the parish, again conducting the sacraments, confessing, forgiving sins and parting the parishioners, comments the interlocutor. In the same year, by the way, his mentor, Archpriest Andrei Grigorievich Yefanov, also entered the correspondence department of St. Alekseevsk Ivanovo-Voznesenka Orthodox Theological Seminary.
“On all the ships he was cheerful in spirit. On the day of his sister's death, he was driving drunk in his Nissan Primera and nothing mundane, as they say, was alien to him. But at the trial he stubbornly refused to be a civilian. He came to meetings in a cassock, in hemmed felt boots, answered the questions of the court with lengthy discourses about the deceased servant of God, Yelena, her daughter and grandson - also servants of God, the will of the Lord. I endlessly asked for forgiveness from the "respected judge, secretary, prosecutor, defenders".
From his remarks it was absolutely not clear, he clearly articulated only one thought: "he does not admit his guilt in the crime”, - says Larisa.
In parallel with the criminal process, the cleric went through the Church court, where he admitted his guilt before the Lord and repented. The Kineshma diocese sentenced the hieromonch to life-long work at St. Nicholas Tikhonov Monastery, suspended him from services for seven years, and forever banned driving and drinking alcohol.
“At the trial, I asked him: “How is it, Father Protoleon, in the church court you feel guilty, agree with what you have done, bear the punishment - you live in a cell. And at our trial you say that you are not guilty of anything? " This is some kind of split personality. He answered my question then: "Children die too". Actually, the answer is the same as in general to the questions of the court - no logic, nothing intelligible”, - says Larisa.
But the church law was not written for the hieromonch Protoleon (Belozertsev). From the recently announced verdict, it became known that in 2020 the hieromonch again drove a car around the settlement, for which he was stopped by the traffic police inspectors. On January 29, 2020, he was prosecuted under Part 2 of Art. 12.9 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (Exceeding the established speed of a vehicle by an amount of 20 to 40 kilometers per hour). The Criminal Court in 2021 considered this an aggravating circumstance in its decision.
The preliminary investigation and the testimony of witnesses also said a lot about the personality of hieromonch Protoleon.
On October 26, 2017, the only witness K., who was not afraid to speak the truth, turned out to be at the scene of the accident, unfortunately for the clergyman. At the trial, she testified that the first thing the priest did after the collision with the cyclist was to change seats with the passenger in the front seat - his 70-year-old grandfather, also a local confessor, and to the arriving traffic police crew said that he was not driving.
Traffic police, according to local media reports, drew up three administrative protocols against the Nissan driver that evening: under Part 1 of Article 12.8 of the Administrative Offenses Code of the Russian Federation (Driving a vehicle by an intoxicated driver), under Part 2 of Art. 12.37 ("Failure by the owner of a vehicle to insure his civil liability established by federal law, as well as driving a vehicle, if such compulsory insurance is obviously absent") and under Art. 12.6 ("Driving a vehicle by a driver who is not wearing a seat belt").
According to the assumptions of the injured party, the priest offered the trick with the replacement of the driver to his passenger, since he himself was drunk. A forensic examination 4 hours after the accident recorded 0.5 ppm in blood, although at the trial the hieromonch insisted on a glass of Cahors. The 70-year-old witness of the incident died by the beginning of the trial, so Protoleon (Belozertsev) did not cost anything, on the advice of lawyers, to play the version with the replacement of the driver back.
After the death of Yelena Sizikova, the local press fanned out reports that Belozertsev asked for forgiveness from the mother of the deceased, and she allegedly forgave them. In fact, the sister says, the elderly woman did not even understand why the next day after her daughter was taken to the intensive care unit, two priests came to her, and at that time she did not yet know that one of them was the culprit of the accident.
“The investigation was progressing hard. The investigators were constantly changing and did not contact us. I barely managed to meet with the head of the investigation department - and then only through a direct appeal to the chief of police, who summoned her to his office and asked her to explain why the investigation was progressing slowly. At a meeting in his office, the investigator said: "he was not that drunk", "by the way, he had not cheap lawyers", "there was ice that day". After these statements, even the chief of police himself could not stand it and handed me a sheet of paper: write a complaint against the investigator”, - says the sister of the deceased.
In fact, a certificate from the Ivanovo Hydrometeorological Center soon appeared in the case, stating that on October 26, "icy phenomena could be observed in the region". It was possible to interrupt this information again only through complaints to Moscow, which sent its request about the weather to Ivanovo on the day of Yelena Sizikova's death. After that, the same Ivanovo Hydrometeorological Center denied itself, and wrote a document that was opposite in meaning: on October 26, 2017, no ice was observed in the Ivanovo region.
In three years, four auto-technical examinations have been assigned. They tried to figure out if the priest could have avoided a collision with a cyclist if he moved at a permitted speed of 30 km / h, and not 50 km / h, as it was in fact. A division of the Russian Ministry of Justice wrote in its conclusion that the collision was inevitable, regardless of the speed. On this basis, they refused to initiate a case. Subsequent examinations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were in favor of the injured party: the collision could have been avoided if the driver of the car moved within the prescribed speed limit.
At the stage of familiarization with the indictment, the hieromonch also received an interesting certificate from the N.N. M.F. Vladimirsky. The presence of the accused in a medical institution is the basis for postponing his acquaintance with the case materials. But without this procedure, without exercising this right, the criminal case cannot be brought to court.
The injured party believes that in this way hieromonch Protoleon once again tried to drag out the process. The investigator sent a request to the medical institution, and from the answer it followed that Sergey Viktorovich Belozertsev was not their patient.
The priest parried in the spirit that he addressed to the Moscow State Budgetary Healthcare Institution of Moscow. Vladimirsky in Moscow only for consultation, and not for inpatient treatment. At the same time, both certificates - the one that came in response to the investigator's request, and the one that Belozertsev himself obtained - had signatures and seals.
Novye Izvestia failed to get through to the convicted hieromonch Protoleon (Belozertsev) and to the diocese where he served.
The press secretary of the Kineshma diocese, Andrey Yefanov, explained in 2017 that the hieromonch drank on the day of the tragedy, but when he got behind the wheel “I just thought that the drunkenness had passed”, “some time passed, he no longer felt drunk”. Yefanov also referred to the good reputation of the clergyman: “In general, we have very good reviews about him. It has proven itself very well. He just drank a glass of wine and did not calculate. He understands that he is guilty and does not justify himself in any way”, - he commented to the radio station “Moscow speaking”.
After the death of Yelena Sizikova, representatives of the diocese announced that they would pay for the funeral of the deceased and pay the family monetary compensation. But so far, even Belozertsev has not fully compensated for the funeral.
The 47-year-old Protoleon previously served at the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity at the Bellingshausen station in Antarctica, which was visited by Patriarch Kirill.
“It would be better for him to stay with the penguins...”, - the well-known church and public figure, Deacon Andrey Kurayev, commented on the fatal accident involving the cleric.