Priest Pivovarov faces lack of medical care after injury
Priest Viktor Pivovarov stopped serving in a church in Slavyansk-on-Kuban because he could not get out of bed after an injury. His assistant said that doctors refused to hospitalize the elderly Viktor Pivovarov.
In May, it became known that the authorities of Slavyansk-on-Kuban went to court with a request to oblige Viktor Pivovarov, Archbishop of the Russia’s Orthodox Church to demolish the Holy Protection and Tikhon Church where he served. According to the authorities’ claim, the church was built on a plot of land allocated for individual housing construction.
In the 1990s, Viktor Pivovarov bought a plot of land, built a residential building, and decided to build a church there. The money for the construction was donated by “one good person,” whose name Viktor Pivovarov refused to disclose. The church was built in the early 2000s. Viktor Pivovarov tried to legalize it, and he has permits for gas, water, and electricity supply. “There can be no talk of the authorities not knowing for almost a quarter of a century that there was a church there,” the priest noted.
The church where Viktor Pivovarov serves is not working, because the priest got an injury and the only one who cares for the sick man is Hieromonk Jonah (Ilya Sigida), the Viktor Pivovarov’s assistant since 2009, said Sergey, one of the parishioners. “The church is not working. People have nowhere to pray,” the parishioner noted.
Olga, another parishioner, says that people can no longer get married, baptize their children, or hold funeral services for their relatives in the church, which the authorities tried to demolish.
“The priest fell and broke his femur, but doctors from the emergency room said that they would not make surgery on him, because he is old (Viktor Pivovarov was born in 1937, – note of the ‘Caucasian Knot’),” said Hieromonk Jonah.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on October 11, 2024 at 07:40 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Source: СK correspondent