Russian Orthodox worshippers leave a memorial service for slain priest Daniil Sysoyev at Saint Thomas's church in southern Moscow.
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Posted on Fri Nov 20 2009
► (Bloomberg) -- A masked gunman killed a Russian Orthodox priest in a Moscow church, a crime that may be linked to the cleric’s “religious activities,” investigators said.
Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A masked gunman killed a Russian Orthodox priest in a Moscow church, a crime that may be linked to the cleric’s “religious activities,” investigators said.The man entered the Church of the Apostle Thomas at about 10:45 p.m. yesterday and fired at least four bullets at the priest and his choirmaster, the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office said on its Web site today.
The priest, Daniil Sysoyev, died in an ambulance en route to a hospital, while the choirmaster survived and is in stable condition, according to the statement. Sysoyev was born in 1974, the choirmaster in 1968.
“Investigators are considering various versions of the crime and haven’t ruled out that the murder of the cleric was linked to his religious activities,” the committee said in the statement.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill called the killing in a church “defiance of Divine Law and an outrage against the sacraments given to us by the Lord Himself.” The patriarch cautioned against rushing to blame any people or groups until the killer is found. His comments were posted on the Moscow Patriarchate’s Web site today.
The patriarch described Father Daniil as a “zealous pastor” and educator who served God until the end.
Father Daniil was active in missionary work, and since 1996 had worked with people who had “suffered from the activities of sects and occultists,” the state-run RIA Novosti news service reported.
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