Okhlobystin’s bid for presidency opposed by Church
This is how Okhlobystin looked like when he was a a priest Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/russia/detail/112221/#ixzz1XB3beSbd
Interfax-Ukraine
5/9/2011
Moscow, September 5 (Interfax) – Ivan Olkhlobystin’s plans to nominate himself for president in the 2012 polls have failed to win support from the Russian Orthodox Church.
“Both the Basis Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church and one of the documents passed by the 2011 Archbishop Council say that clerics cannot nominate their candidacies for elections to any representative bodies of power of any countries and at any levels,” Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, head of the Moscow Patriarchate External Church Relations Department, has told Interfax.
Naturally, this equally applies to the presidential election, he said, commenting on Okhlobystin’s statement, made at the Interfax main office, that he was planning to run for the presidency.
Okhlobystin said that in order to go into politics, he needed “at least a tacit approval from the Church”.
Father Vsevolod Chaplin emphasized that exceptions from the rules forbidding priests to participate in elections could only be allowed in case of extreme necessity for the church.
There appear to be no grounds for such exceptions in Russia, he added.
