Monday, February 20, 2006

Metropolitan Valentine of ROAC had an amputation

(Vertograd, Moscow)

Metropolitan Valentine of Suzdal and Vladimir, First-Hierarch of ROAC, had a surgery on February 6 in Moscow Hospital on Pirogov Street. Due to bone necrosis doctors had to amputate his big toe and some part of the left foot.

Metropolitan Valentine was first admitted to the endocrinology department of this hospital in September 2005 after sudden exacerbation of his diabetes. At the end of October he moved to Switzerland where he spent more than a month in Swiss Hospital near Geneva. Skin transplantation was made there, but it turned to be unsuccessful, so that his second leg was affected. He returned to Moscow Hospital on Pirogov Street is the middle of December. Metropolitan Valentine will have to stay at that hospital at least till the end of February.

Web-blog of ROCOR(L) priest closed for the appeal to assault participants of gay-parade in Moscow

(Portal-Credo.Ru - Vertograd, Moscow)

Web-blog of Father Dimitry Kaplun, ROCOR(L) priest in Birobidzhan (Siberia), was closed by the administration of LiveJournal.Com on the 17th of February. The reason was the message of Father Dimitry dated February 16, where he blessed to resist gay-parade in Moscow by any means, “including physical violence”.

“They say, Moscow authorities allowed gay-parade in Moscow? I, as an Orthodox priest, completely openly and officially bless with the Name of God those who is planning to scatter this detestable-to-God demonstration or to resist this parade by any means, including physical violence. If it violates the laws of Russian Federation, than Orthodox Russians should not be afraid to violate the law when it contradicts the Law of God”, writes Father Dimitry, who lives in one of the most distant regions of Russia. The appeal in his LiveJournal got several thousand replies in 24 hours and got the first line in the rating of religious web sites of Russia.