A court in Russia on Thursday (Dec. 18) found a Russian priest guilty of “showing an overt disrespect for society” and imposed a 30,000 Ruble ($379) fine after authorities last month beat him, shaved his hair and beard and shocked him with a stun gun.
In Slavyansk City Court in Krasnodar Region, Judge Vladimir Otroshko delivered the verdict on the administrative charges to the Rev. Iona (Ilya) Sigida, 34, an assistant at Holy Intercession and Tikhon Church in Slavyansk-on-Kuban, who was charged with disseminating information showing an overt disrespect for society, state bodies and state symbols.
Rights group Forum 18 reported that Judge Yuliya Pelyushenko placed the priest under house arrest on Nov. 28, with release not scheduled until Jan. 20.
This followed a violent attack by troops at the church premises on Nov. 27 and the arrest of Sigida after he critiqued Russia on the church website.
In Nov. 27 interrogations, National Guard troops or Investigative Committee officials forcibly shaved Sigida’s hair and beard, beat him and shocked him with a stun gun, he stated after his release.
Separately, Sigida has also been facing criminal charges “for a possibly related offense of ‘overt disrespect for society about days of military glory’ (Criminal Code Article 354.1, Part 4), apparently for articles he posted on the website of the Holy Intercession Tikhonite Church in Slavyansk-na-Kubani,” Forum 18 reported.
The Investigative Committee opened two cases on Nov. 20 under this same article. These cases involve articles on the church website that criticize how Russia marks Victory Day (May 9) and other Soviet holidays.
Sigida remains under investigation for two criminal charges of “Dissemination of information expressing overt disrespect for society about days of military glory and commemorative dates of Russia associated with the defense of the Fatherland, as well as desecration of symbols of military glory of Russia, insult to the memory of defenders of the Fatherland or humiliation of the honor and dignity of a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, committed publicly,” according to Forum 18.
Sigida serves as a hieromonk in an independent Orthodox church led by Archbishop Viktor Pivovarov, 88.
Pivovarov has faced both administrative and criminal prosecution and previously labeled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “satanic.”
The church does not maintain communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.
Slavyansk City Court registered four administrative cases against Sigida on Dec. 8 under parts of Russian law’s Administrative Code Article 20. Court records show that the court assigned these cases to different judges, Forum 18 reported.
The allegations involve publicly discrediting the Russian Armed Forces, “petty hooliganism” and disseminating information “in an indecent form” on the internet and telecommunication networks, which “insults human dignity and public morality,” and “overt disrespect for society, the state, official state symbols of the Russian Federation, the Constitution of the Russian Federation, or bodies exercising state power in the Russian Federation.”
“It is unknown which materials form the basis of the four administrative charges, or why Fr. Iona is facing administrative prosecution at the same time as a criminal investigation,” Forum 18 stated.
The rights group quoted an anonymous church member living outside Russia as saying, “Maybe [police or investigators] want to meet their quota by the end of the year and start more cases. Who knows?”
Investigators raided the home of a church parishioner and questioned her about posts on the church website.
The content on the website disappeared on Nov. 27. Investigators confiscated her electronic devices but did not open an administrative or criminal case against her.
“Fr. Iona and Archbishop Viktor posted articles on the church website until summer 2024,” Forum 18 reported. “As well as discussing theology and liturgy, these writings often critically assessed aspects of Russian history and present-day society from a religious perspective.”
The rights group wrote to authorities on Dec. 15 to request clarity on the four administrative cases and to ask if the criminal cases remain open.
Forum 18 directed these questions to the Krasnodar Region Investigative Committee, the Krasnodar Region branch of the Interior Ministry and the Slavyansk police. No official had provided a response by Friday (Dec. 19).
Sigida faces further court hearings on Tuesday (Dec. 23) before Judge Natalya Kovalchuk and Judge Viktoriya Statva. He will attend a final hearing before Judge Nikolay Mironenko on Jan. 14.
Both Sigida and Pivovarov experienced a prior raid at the church premises at 6 a.m. on Oct. 3, 2023. They awoke to find military figures with machine guns raiding the site and seizing electronic devices, documents, and computer hard drives.
“They take me abruptly inside, throw me to the ground, trip me up, face down on the floor,” Sigida told media outlet Novaya Gazeta at the time. He described how men in camouflage burst into the temple with machine guns and pinned him to the floor.
“They burst into the temple with machine guns, in camouflage, in SOBR balaclavas, straight with machine guns, like military men. They twist me on the floor. And [one of them] puts his knee on my back and presses me, so that I suffocate,” Sigida said.
Russian security forces interrogated Sigida and beat his body and face, he said. He told Novaya Gazeta that they twisted his arms behind his back.
They attempted to shave his beard but stopped when the priest, who suffers from a spinal disorder, began to convulse.
He stated that at the police station, officers forced 18-year-old “witnesses” to state that he had resisted by rushing and grabbing officers.
Sigida spent two days in jail on accusations of disobeying a police officer. Authorities also opened a case against his father for “discrediting” the army.
Pivovarov, whom a court fined 150,000 Rubles ($1,893) on April 8, 2024, for “repeatedly” discrediting Russia’s armed forces, escaped a beating during the 2023 raid. He told Forum 18, however, that security operatives stripped off his clothes and threatened him.
Slavyansk City Court previously fined Pivovarov 40,000 Rubles ($505) on March 24, 2023, for “discrediting” the Russian armed forces in a sermon. He pleaded guilty to those charges.
“I told the investigators, the policemen and the court: If foreign tanks are there under our windows, it means we are at war with an enemy, an interventionist,” the archbishop told Novaya Gazeta-Europe.
He argued that if Russian tanks enter a neighboring country and soldiers torture people, they wage an invasive war.
“But if our tanks are in a neighboring country, and our soldiers are savagely torturing the people, waging an invasive war, then they are damned. Such a war is cursed by both God and man. Our war is a great evil,” the archbishop said.
The archbishop also told Novaya Gazeta-Europe in 2023 that he expected imprisonment or death.
“I am waiting to be either killed or imprisoned,” Pivovarov said. “Then the world will know and will wonder: Who was he? Did he know in advance what was going to happen and the mysteries of existence? Where were we looking? And then there will certainly be a coup in Russia and uprisings.”