Sex abuse allegations at Orthodox seminary stir controversy

A weeks-long scandal has been simmering within the Russian Orthodox Church after an outspoken cleric publicized accounts of a church probe into sexual harassment at a Kazan seminary.

Archdeacon Andrei Kurayev – a controversial theology professor who ruffled feathers within the church for his support of jailed members of the feminist punk group Pussy Riot – claimed that he was fired from the Moscow Spiritual Academy on Dec. 30 for exposing the sexual harassment probe.

Since then, Kurayev has continued publishing sexual abuse complaints from other seminarians and lay brothers, and his allegations are clashing with increasingly tough rhetoric coming from church leaders condemning homosexuality.

The reports of homosexual harassment within the church come against a backdrop of a controversial law banning the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations, calls for criminalizing homosexuality outright, and increasing criticism of the Kremlin for aligning itself with the church.

Sexual abuse probe

Reports first appeared in local media that the church’s educational body had sent a delegation to the Kazan Spiritual Seminary on Dec. 13 to check allegations of sexual abuse. “Among complaints [read out by the delegation to students], two [students] described how they fell victim to sexual harassment from one of the priests,” Kazanweek.ru, an online news portal in Kazan, reported on Dec. 15, citing an unnamed source at the seminary.

“One student accidentally found himself at a dinner party with the said priest, who sat him on his lap and tried to grab his sexual organ.” Another student, according to the complaints, reportedly suffered an attempted sexual assault by the priest at a sauna after being given alcohol.

According to the report at Kazanweek.ru, a number of other students confirmed similar complaints when asked by the delegation.

Archpriest Maxim Kozlov, who headed the delegation, declined to be interviewed for this article. The Education Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church – the body which sent the delegation – could not be reached for comment.

But Oleg Sukhanov, a spokesperson for the Moscow Spiritual Academy, where Kozlov is a professor, confirmed that the probe had taken place. “[Kozlov] went to the seminary and conducted a probe,” Sukhanov told The Moscow News. “Based on the results of the probe, the priest named in the complaints was fired.”

Asked whether the Dec. 13 probe had confirmed anything, a top-ranking priest at the Kazan seminary, Father Roman Modin, told The Moscow News that “it would be more correct if you do not [write] about such things because the church is a closed corporation,” and that only journalists who have “Christian competency” should write about such topics. Modin refused to comment further.

Hushing up scandals?

The reports appear to echo widespread complaints of priests forcing homosexual relations on novices in exchange for helping them move up the career ladder.

“This issue exists, but in the Moscow diocese it’s all hushed up behind seven seals,” said a former nun who spent nearly two decades at a Moscow region monastery. “A lot of it occurs in the [Moscow diocese],” the nun, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, added. “I know of several young men who left the church. To get a good position they had to go engage in [sexual] relations with the priest or the deacon. They were promised apartments, cars, travel.”

Since being fired in December, Kurayev has reposted on his LiveJournal an outpouring of complaints similar to those that came from the Kazan seminary. “It was fun, but with time the spiritual life was only a background, inside there was only debauchery,” said one LiveJournal user who subsequently deleted his account, describing his experiences of volunteering in a Tver church starting at the age of 16. “Two months passed like that. I got expensive clothes and the archbishop would kiss me on the lips with tongue and pat my bottom right during the evening service.”

“Of course there is a [gay lobby within the church],” said an informed source close to senior church officials in Moscow. “But even if there were a [political] will, it would be impossible to get rid of it.”

The policy, the source said, was to hush up scandals if they surfaced, much as the Catholic Church had done with similar scandals in Europe until widespread court cases pushed them to the fore.

The source, however, believed that Kurayev’s decision to start the debate on homosexual relations within the church was ultimately motivated by publicity.

Kurayev has said that he published the complaints because he wanted to support Maxim Kozlov’s probe into allegations at the Kazan seminary. He added that he didn’t see how he could take the investigation further.

“I don’t see potential for a criminal investigation,” Kurayev told The Moscow News. “The victims themselves have to come forward, not me. That depends on whether they are prepared to go public with this, and whether they believe they will get a fair hearing within a court trial. Finally, any person who has faced sexual harassment knows how hard it is to put forth allegations, that the other party will simply deny them.”

The next move, Kurayev said, must come from the church.

Church response

The Moscow Spiritual Academy has denied that Kurayev was fired in connection with the sexual abuse allegations, citing as the real reason his outspoken comments on a number of issues in the past that clashed with the church position.

“For there to be a basis to accuse someone of such a heinous sin as forcing those in his ward into sexual relations, there needs to be real evidence,” Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, a spokesman for the church, told The Moscow News when asked whether the church planned to investigate the allegations of sexual abuse further. “I do not know what was obtained in the course of the probe into the Kazan seminary.”

“So far, Father Andrei [Kurayev] is merely publishing anonymous texts,” Chaplin added. “It looks like he began this campaign when he understood that he was going to be fired from the Moscow academy.”

“In order for the allegations to stop being anonymous, the [victims] need to be certain that the case will be investigated seriously,” Kurayev said. “This is about the honor of the church, about the fate of hundreds of thousands of people who are watching all this in horror.”

Kurayev’s allegations were coming to the fore as another gay-related controversy picked up momentum. Last week, former-priest-turned-actor Ivan Okhlobystin wrote a letter to President Vladimir Putin urging a referendum on reinstating prison terms for homosexuality.

In the Soviet Union, homosexuality was a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. That law was scrapped in 1993. The current laws against promotion of non-traditional sexual relations, which Putin signed into law this summer, were not enough, said Okhlobystin, who in December said that gays should be burned alive.

“Homosexual relations undermine morals, they are suicidal for a nation,” Chaplin told The Moscow News when asked about his views on Okhlobystin’s letter. “It is as much of an unacceptable vice as theft and murder. This should be put up for public discussion.”