SYNOD DISMISSES METROPOLITAN ANASTASY OF KAZAN, BUT ONLY FROM POST OF SEMINARY RECTOR

Portal-credo.ru, 19 March 2014

Hegumen Evfimy, deputy chairman of the Publishing Council of the Moscow patriarchate, was appointed rector of the Kazan Ecclesiastical Seminary of RPTsMP. This decision was made by the Holy Synod of RPTsMP, whose session was held on 19 March in Moscow.

“The synod considered the request of His Eminence Metropolitan of Kazan and Tatarstan Anastasy to release him from the office of rector of the Kazan Ecclesiastical Seminary because of the growing burden of administration of affairs of the Tatarstan metropolia,” ITAR-TASS quotes the head of the synod’s Information Department, Vladimir Legoida.

Metropolitan Anastasy is the principal figure in the scandal connected with exposure of the “gay lobby” in the administration of RPTsMP that was started in December of last year by Archdeacon Andrei Kuraev. At the time, the Kazan seminary was visited by a commission of the Academic Committee of RPTsMP which established cases of systematic sexual harassment of seminarians on the part of the administration of the academic institution. The prorector Hegumen Kirill was dismissed from his office, and he found refuge in the Tver diocese where, Kuraev maintains, the positions of the “gay lobby” are also especially strong. (tr. by PDS, posted 19 March 2014)