Russian Priest Arrested for Telling Soldiers They're Going to Hell

A former Russian Orthodox priest who has condemned his country's invasion of Ukraine has reportedly been arrested as the Kremlin continues its clampdown on dissent of the war.

Ioann Kurmoyarov was detained in St. Petersburg on Tuesday and his property was raided by investigators who took away some of his religious items, according to independent Russian news outlet Mediazona. Kurmoyarov has been charged under legislation prohibiting the spread of "false information" about the Russian military, a law enforcement source told Russia's 78.ru TV channel.

The arrest comes three months after a video he shared titled, "who will be in hell and who will be in heaven?" In it, he takes aim at "Kremlin propaganda," as well as suggestions that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was the will of a power even higher than President Vladimir Putin. The Russian government passed a censorship law in March that criminalizes the distribution of "fake news" about the Russian military, with a punishment of up to 15 years in prison.

"I want to disappoint everyone who believes in this fake from a Christian point of view," Kurmoyarov said in the video uploaded to YouTube on March 12, adding that those who "unleash aggression won't be in heaven" and that "Ukraine did not attack Russia."

He said that everyone involved in the war "who wants to be in heaven must change their religion" to militant Islamism, in which there is the concept of a "holy war."

In what appeared to be a message to those involved in Russian aggression, including soldiers, he said, "you are the aggressors who attacked and killed civilians. I say once again, you will not be in any kind of heaven, you will be in hell."

Mediazona reported that a smartphone, a laptop, a tablet, two hard drives, a cassock and two icons with a wooden cross were confiscated from Kurmoyarov's apartment pending a criminal investigation which could land him a jail term of up to 10 years.

It is not the first time Kurmoyarov has been at odds with Russian authorities. Last year, he was reportedly defrocked after he demanded criminal charges be brought against Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for a new military cathedral outside Moscow that featured a mosaic of Putin, Shoigu, and another one with soldiers holding a portrait of former Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

Kurmoyarov's comments contrasted with those made in April by Russian state TV personality Vladimir Solovyov, who said in the event of a nuclear war "we will go to heaven," referring to Russians.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, is a Putin ally who has faced condemnation for providing a religious justification for the war in Ukraine. In a sermon on February 27, the patriarch said that Ukraine and Belarus are part of the "Russian lands" and called the Ukrainian defenders of their national identity and their sovereignty "forces of evil."

The group Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) has said that Kirill prepared the ground and justified the war as one against Western decadence and means to protect Russian spiritual values

"Patriarch Kirill gave his blessing and canonical justification to Putin's 'special military operation' of invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing massacres," HWRF head Willy Fautré told Newsweek.

He said that the patriarch's comments made him a "de facto accomplice of the military aggression, invasion, destruction and killings perpetrated by the Russian army."

Fautré said that HWRF has submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) a report "documenting the complicity of Patriarch Kirill in Russia's war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine."