The prosecution demanded that Nikolai Romanov be sentenced to seven years in prison in a penal colony. We are talking about the schemamonk excommunicated from the Church and the former shegumen of the Yekaterinburg diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Sergius. This was reported to Business FM by his lawyer Pavel Babikov.
“During the debate of the parties, the prosecutor asked that he be sentenced to seven years in a penal colony, and the second defendant, Vsevolod Moguchev, be sentenced to five years in prison,” he said. According to him, the prosecutor also asked to ban the latter from administering Internet resources after his release for three years.
Babikov clarified that the prosecutor asked for the seven-year term requested for Romanov to be assigned to the defendant in conjunction with the first court verdict. “In the framework of the second case, she demanded that he be sentenced to 5.5 years in prison, but by partial addition of sentences, the final term is seven years in prison,” the lawyer said.
The defense of Romanov and Moguchev called on the court to acquit the defendants for the absence of corpus delicti in their actions. The latter denied his involvement in the preparation of Romanov’s sermons and claimed that he was only fulfilling his functions as the monastery’s press secretary, posting all the sermons of the now former rector on the Web.
As for Nikolai Romanov, in the opinion of his lawyers, the defendant’s guilt has not been proven. “During the period imputed by the investigation, Romanov was an active priest. Therefore, it is impossible to evaluate his speech using exclusively linguistic knowledge. It is necessary to take into account religious, psychological and cultural aspects, as the methods of the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Internal Affairs say about this,” said Pavel Babikov. “However, this was not done by the investigation. And if in the first case they still tried to conduct a comprehensive examination, then in this case the investigation was limited to the conclusion of an expert linguist, whom we challenged.”
According to the lawyer, the opinion of religious scholars and culturologists presented by the defense refuted the version of the prosecution. According to this conclusion, the word “Jew” in the church and in everyday understanding can be regarded differently. “In one it is understood as a theomachist, and in the other as a miser, and this is a significant difference. But the investigation took only the linguistic aspect, simplified the situation and charged,” the defender noted. He claims that the defrocked priest never spoke out against the Jews, and several of their representatives came to court, who assured that people of all nationalities were received in the monastery.
Babikov also believes that the investigation artificially created an “organized group” in the person of Moguchev and Romanov, imputing Part 2 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code (“actions aimed at inciting hatred or enmity committed by an organized group”) to them. According to him, without Moguchev, Romanov should have been charged with part 1 of the same article, which implies inciting hatred or enmity on the Internet, after being brought to administrative responsibility for a similar act within one year. “However, the last time Father Sergius was brought to administrative responsibility was in July 2020, and after that there were no sermons. Therefore, they took the poor, unfortunate Vsevolod Moguchev and artificially “fastened” him. And he has nothing to do with it at all, ”said the defender.
The press secretary of the court Alexandra Savelyeva, in her turn, said that on January 25 at 11:00 the court will hear the last word of the defendants, after which it will retire for the announcement of the verdict.
The trial in the case has been ongoing since August 16, 2022. In December, the proceedings were closed due to the fact that the supporters of the ex-sheigumen poured holy water on the prosecutor.
There are two defendants in the dock: 67-year-old Nikolai Romanov and 34-year-old former press secretary of the Sredneuralsk convent Vsevolod Moguchev. They are charged with inciting hatred and enmity (paragraph “c” of part 2 of article 282 of the Criminal Code) against representatives of other religious denominations and face up to six years in prison. Both of them are in custody.
The case is based on videos promoting, according to investigators, hatred towards “Jews, Jews, Muslims and Catholics.” They were posted from December 19, 2019 to July 18, 2020 on Vsevolod Moguchev’s YouTube channel. According to the prosecution, Moguchev helped Romanov prepare, record and post videos on the Internet. In them, the latter “caused hatred towards Jews and Jews on the basis of religion.” Romanov’s speeches contained “humiliating characteristics” of representatives of other religious denominations, the indictment said.
During the trial, the defendants pleaded not guilty. They believe that the sermons “were purely spiritual in nature.”
This is Romanov’s second case. Earlier, on November 30, 2021, the Izmailovsky Court of the capital sentenced him to 3.5 years in prison in a penal colony for inciting suicide, arbitrariness and violating the right to freedom of conscience and religion (part 3 of article 110.1, part 3 of art. 148 and part 1 of article 330 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Earlier, in the Soviet years, he was tried for murder and robbery and sentenced to 13 years in prison, but after serving the sentence he was released in the late 1990s. This conviction is considered expunged.
The cleric came into the spotlight after he began to deny COVID-19 in sermons and called the situation with the spread of the coronavirus a “pseudo-pandemic”. He claimed that they want to place Russians in the “electronic camp of Satan”, “lawlessly put them in self-isolation”, and deprive them of “freedom and work”. In the media, his sermons were called “covid-dissident”. He called for a boycott of the vote on amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation.