RUSSIAN clergymen are being urged to arm themselves with guns to defend themselves against gangs attempting to steal church icons."The police are recommending to priests that they should apply, as private individuals, to the Interior Ministry's offices and request a licence to own firearms for self-defence," said regional police spokeswoman Yelena Kirshanova.
A theological objection to the idea has been raised, after a cleric of the Russian Orthodox diocese of Kostroma said this might contravene the biblical commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’.
Fr Andrei Kazarin, Secretary of the Orthodox Church's Kostroma diocese, said priests faced being defrocked should they break this commandment.
But he added: "It would be quite possible to give firearms to sextons or churchwardens."
Last year, thieves killed a priest in the Urals region of Sverdlovsk to steal church icons. There have been other incidents of armed gangs stealing the icons from unprotected rural churches where police take a long time to respond.
The thieves are often desperate drug addicts used by organised gangs who can sell the religions artifacts abroad.
Father Kazarin said: "There must be a state programme to protect churches. It is not only up to the church to defend itself because this is also everyone's heritage."
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