New Delhi: A Russian court has sent to prison a monk who denied that Covid-19 existed. The rebel monk, Father Sergiy, was arrested in December 2020 on charges of encouraging suicides through his sermons.
Moscow’s Ismailovo District Court convicted him on Tuesday and handed out a prison sentence of three and a half years, Associated Press reported.
In his reaction to the ruling, according to the report, Father Sergiy said, “Do not judge and you will not be judged” — a quote from the Bible.
His lawyers said they would appeal the verdict.
According to a December 2020 report in Russian news agency TASS, the 66-year-old monk was detained after he posted a video on YouTube encouraging his followers "to die for Russia", after the coronavirus pandemic struck.
Father Sergiy was reportedly fined a couple of times for inciting hatred and hostility, and also for spreading fake information through his sermons.
He had described the Covid situation as a "fake pandemic" and exhorted people to defy the lockdown to go to church.
In late May 2020, the Russian Orthodox Church stripped him of his abbot’s rank, and later excommunicated him, for breaking monastic rules.
The monk had castigated the Kremlin over the Covid restrictions, calling the Vladimir Putin administration's efforts “Satan’s electronic camp”, AP reported. He also described the Covid-19 vaccines being developed across the world as part of a global plot to “control the masses via microchips”, the report said.
Born as Nikolai Romanov, Father Sergiy was a police officer during Soviet times. According to reports, he was sentenced to 13 years in jail in 1986 for burglary and murder. He joined a church school after walking free and later became a monk.