Metropolitan Archibishop against the Governor: will a religious procession take place in Yekaterinburg?

In Yekaterinburg, a new coronavirus conflict flares up between spiritual and secular authorities. Sverdlovsk Governor Yevgeny Kuyvashev has banned the procession of the cross on the Tsar's Days, the main event of the local diocese dedicated to the anniversary of the death of the Tsar's family. Kuyvashev explained his decision by the fact that after the religious procession in July 2020, in which 10 thousand people took part, several of its participants fell ill with coronavirus and suffered the disease very hard.

However, Metropolitan Archibishop Yevgeny (Kulberg) did not agree with the governor's decision and stated in his telegram channel that the procession should take place:

“In the current epidemic situation, there can be no perfect solutions. Everyone independently finds a balance between courage and fear, responsibility and courage, caution and boldness.

I will definitely go!

The decision of the authorities, who did not agree on the holding of the Tsar's religious procession, have reasons. Although one should not stigmatize believers as the culprits of the spread of the infection".

The procession from the Church on Blood to Ganina Yama in honor of the 103th anniversary of the execution of the royal family is planned to be held on the night of July 17-18, and at the end of June the city authorities were seriously preparing for it. But something went wrong.

It will be very interesting to observe how this collision will end, since this is not the first conflict of this kind in the Sverdlovsk region, if we recall the situation with the arrest in December last year of the notorious Fr. Sergius (Romanov), when the inhabitants and flock of the Sredneuralsky monastery led by him refused to obey the epidemic demands of the authorities and literally rebelled.

As journalist Dmitry Kolezev writes: “Father Sergiy is in jail, but his work lives on...”.