The head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, instructed to check the information about the death of a 15-year-old girl from a serious illness in a hospice at the Sredneuralsky Monastery, which was seized by the defrocked Father Sergius (Romanov). This was reported on the website of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation.
Bastrykin instructed the head of the division of the Investigative Committee of Russia in the Sverdlovsk region to report on the circumstances of the incident.
Earlier that day, it was reported that the girl was suffering from cancer.
According to the source, the girl was brought to the monastery in the hope of healing, as the doctors were unable to help her.
At the moment, the former schema-abbot is being interviewed by law enforcement officers. Monastery spokesman Vsevolod Moguchev said he had no blessing to comment on this situation.
At the end of May, the diocesan authorities banned Romanov from serving due to the fact that he urged citizens not to comply with the quarantine regime, and called the situation with the coronavirus a pseudo-pandemic.
The next month, Sergius removed the abbess of the Sredneuralsky nunnery in the Sverdlovsk region from management and gathered the Cossacks to guard the territory of the monastery.
In early July, the Yekaterinburg diocese turned to former pupils of the Sredneuralsk nunnery for help in collecting information on cases of violence against children in the monastery. At the same time, Vsevolod Moguchev, who assumed the duties of a representative of the monastery, called the information about violence against minors false.
On July 24, Patriarch Kirill approved the decision of the Diocesan Court of the Yekaterinburg Diocese, which on July 3 found Schema Abbot Sergius guilty of violating the priestly oath and ordered to defrock him.
Later, Vakhtang Kipshidze, deputy head of the Synodal Department for Church Relations with Society and the Media, said that the Russian Orthodox Church would leave the former clergyman an opportunity to repent of his actions, Gazeta.ru writes.