Russian Priest Killed By Urinating Drunks
23/12/2009
A Russian priest has been shot dead after he criticised a group of drunken men who were urinating in the hallway of his apartment block.
Prosecutors said orthodox priest Alexander Filippov was shot and killed after he admonished the men for “breaching public order” in the hallway.
The men were “answering a call of nature”, Mr Filippov’s widow told the Interfax news agency.
A suspect with a previous conviction for murder was detained by police hours later.
Mr Filippov, 39, served as a priest in the village of Satino-Russkoye and had three daughters.
Vladimir Legoida, head of the Synodal information department of the Russian Orthodox Church, said: “Such evil simply beggars belief, when a person is a victim of open, blatant malevolence.”
The shooting in the town of Podolsk, near Moscow, comes a month after another priest who received death threats for outspoken statements on Islam was shot in his Moscow church by a masked gunman.
No one has been arrested for the shooting, which investigators said was a suspected hate crime.
“We must relate to the events of the last months in the most serious way,” Legoida added.
