"My Church is sick"
The story of a Samara priest who was forced out of the church for his anti-war posts, but decided to become a psychologist so he could one day help the Church "find a human face."
Archpriest Sergiy Rybakov is 39 years old. He lives in Samara with his wife, Irina, and their six children, but since the spring of 2023, he has no longer served at St. Tatiana Church, where he was rector. He was forced to leave due to his anti-war sermons and social media posts. Now he preaches on YouTube, works as a marketer, and says the Russian Orthodox Church is now like an ENT doctor's office—you need to breathe and remain silent. Father Sergiy is also studying to be a psychologist and hopes that one day he will be able to help the Church process the trauma of war.
Author: Arina Ruble. Photo: Daria Lvova
How Father Sergius lost his parish
When February 24, 2022, happened, Father Sergius, in his own words, could find no reason to justify the war. He was serving as rector at the time. Tatiana's Temple in Samara, but did not, like many other priests, read prayers for victory.
I tried to understand why this had happened. I told myself, "Sergey, you don't understand a damn thing about what's going on. There's probably some truth to this. Figure it out." I listened to different sides, talked to parishioners who had instantly supported the war. And I couldn't find any justification.
Father Sergiy began writing on VKontakte about the inadmissibility of killing, calling black white, and living in a dystopia. The then-Secretary of the Diocesan Administration of the Samara Diocese, Archpriest Sergiy Pushkarev, demanded that the social media posts be removed: first, he pressed on patriotism, and then simply threatened punishment. The threat had no effect. Metropolitan of Samara and Novokuibyshevsk He summoned the rector and told him that the FSB had come to him and asked him to rein in the dissenting priest. "I was so scared, I thought, what would happen if I were arrested and the children lost their father? I deleted everything I'd written," the priest admits. He then clarifies that he simply archived the anti-war posts: "I wanted to show them later—to tell them that I was always against it." Father Sergiy Rybakov and his wife, Irina, have six children: their eldest daughter is in ninth grade, and their youngest son is two years old.
Father Sergiy compares his subsequent service in the church to a swing: he would either restrain himself or be tempted to write another post on social media.
And at the beginning of 2023, I decided for myself: what did I write? That God is against death, that God did not bless violence, that the Gospel does not support murder anywhere, in any place. What's wrong with that? And I decided to unarchive the posts. So I did—and I think: come what may. After all, I have a right to my opinion.
He told his wife about his decision after he had already reinstated his wall posts. She understood he couldn't remain silent completely and asked him to at least be more careful. So, instead of denunciatory sermons, Father Sergius's VKontakte wall became an "Aesopian column": he posted clips, music, and pictures that conveyed his attitude toward war, even though the word itself no longer appeared there.
However, the priest's elegant metaphors didn't help. According to him, in March 2023, "something interesting began": the diocesan lawyer—a former intelligence officer, according to Father Sergiy—made it clear that he and some of his supportive parishioners "may not be well." I asked the priest how he knew where the lawyer had previously worked. The priest shrugged: "Oh, well, everyone knows that. He himself admitted he was a former soldier."
In mid-March, the Metropolitan summoned Father Sergius to his office, said that he had given up on his future and that of his children, and demanded that he “mind his own business” and not politics.
"But that's exactly what I was doing! I was preaching the Gospel in church and on social media!" the priest exclaims indignantly, recalling this conversation.
At the time, his wife Irina was pregnant; their son was born prematurely on March 24 and ended up in intensive care (“It was all these calls from the diocese, the problems I brought to my wife. She was, of course, scared. To be honest, I was scared myself.”) When April 16 came Easter, Father Sergius thought for the first time that staying in the church was unbearable.
He decided to visit the Metropolitan personally in May 2023, when he learned that Tatiana's Church, which had been maintained by Samara State University, was supposedly going to be transferred to the diocese. In case the bishop accused him, Father Sergiy, of poor management of the parish, the priest prepared a petition to resign.
The meeting with the Metropolitan was brief: he simply signed the petition. "When I left, they told me they'd write a bad character reference and no one would hire me," Father Sergiy recounts.
So he ceased to be rector and lost his parish. As for the church, it remains under the university's control. Father Sergiy now believes the diocese orchestrated this whole affair to push him to resign: "They pressured me and hoped I would leave without complaint or struggle."
Parishioners of St. Tatiana's Church wrote a letter to the Metropolitan asking for Father Sergius to be returned in any capacity, but they were not even given a formal response.
"We don't listen to people at all. They're expected, like in an ENT doctor's office, to breathe and remain silent," the priest summarizes succinctly. And then suddenly adds: "It's probably impossible to say for sure that I was removed for political reasons..."
It's as if he's trying to find an explanation for everything that's happening that won't crush him, that will give him a reason to see the good in people. Like many Orthodox Christians, he primarily looks for flaws in himself. He says that his VKontakte page was blocked because of "questionable charitable donations"—that was the reason given in the blocking notice. Father Sergiy helped A parishioner was raising money for her daughter's treatment after surgery. He provided VKontakte administrators with all the receipts, certificates, and doctor's reports, but it was to no avail: the page remains blocked.
I remain silent. Church documents never contain the phrase "anti-war statements": priests who disagree with the war are sent out of state or defrocked for other reasons, and sometimes they are completely do not indicate.
"I ask all of you for forgiveness, for not being able to lift this ring, for not carrying it to Mordor, for falling helplessly... Forgive me, my dears! I will greatly miss our services, our embraces at Liturgy, our conversations outside of it... Please do not brand me a traitor or a renegade—try to understand me, as much as you have the love and understanding to do so... I am retiring—this is not defrocking; I will remain a priest with the option to return. I ask only one thing—do not renounce, do not be offended by God, do not forsake your relationship with Him because of my decision... He directs everything for the good! Do not renounce me either—this pain will be very difficult for me to endure, remember me and my family in your prayers."
How Father Sergius became a freelance priest
A supernumerary priest is a freelance priest. He can join services whenever he wants and perform funerals and baptisms at the request of parishioners. But this income alone cannot support a family.
Father Sergiy doesn't have a price list for his services—he's against turning the church into a store. He told parishioners that he performs the sacraments for free, and it's up to them to donate: "And there were times when people would say, 'Wow, great!' They'd shake my hand, thank you, and say goodbye. And that's normal. I didn't think at the time, 'Oh, you bastards, you didn't get my point. I told you between the lines, "Give me money."' When you do good, as they said in the old Soviet cartoon, throw it in the water."
For Father Sergius, it is better to be a supernumerary priest than not to be one at all - that way one can serve the liturgy and perform the sacraments without having to read the prayer for victory.
ー The retired priests today are the “new quiet ones,” as they are called Shevchuk called him: they do not agree with the war, with the aggressive position of the church, but they do not speak out, they do not go to protests.
It is possible to leave the state for a maximum of three months During this time, the priest must be assigned to another diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church. Failure to do so results in his being "transferred to a suspended position." This is not defrocked, but it does mean he can no longer bless, wear the cassock and cross, or conduct services. If he doesn't repent within a year, he is defrocked.
В the report The Peace to All Foundation's 2024 report lists 39 priests who were subjected to repression by the Russian Orthodox Church for their anti-war statements. Some were dismissed, others were banned from serving or defrocked. They faced problems due to their disagreement with the policies of secular and ecclesiastical authorities. collided Dozens of priests. On March 1, 2022, they signed an open letter calling for an end to the war in Ukraine.
Almost two years have passed since Father Sergius retired, but the priest doesn't know whether he was banned from serving or not: no one notified him. One thing is certain: not defrocked.
He is not interested in finding out who the Russian Orthodox Church considers him to be.
This isn't my wedding; I still consider myself a priest. I've done nothing to warrant being banned. I didn't beat my wife, I didn't preach heresy, I didn't sell drugs, I didn't kill, I didn't shed blood, I didn't renounce Christ, God, or the Church on a universal scale. By all canons, I'm a priest. And my status within this institution is irrelevant.
Father Sergiy recalls how journalist Mikhail Kozyrev, in his documentary "Silent Rock 'n' Roll," described how the organizers of the "Nashestvie" rock festival began collaborating with the Ministry of Defense, and musicians' performances began featuring tank exhibitions. Because of this, some bands, including "Pornofilmy," refused to participate, and Dmitry Spirin, the frontman of the band "Tarakany," arrived and declared that a rock festival and military connotations were incompatible. Father Sergiy regrets not having fought for his platform to the end, just as Spirin had:
Maybe I would have been shut down, kicked out with a huge scandal. Fined, jailed. But until the very end, I would have had this platform where I could legitimately disagree. And now I'm like Pornofilms, who refused to come to Nashestvie.
Father says that going back is already "scary" because it would mean "accepting the rules of the game, giving in." Father Sergius was offered the opportunity to leave the city and join another metropolitanate, but he stayed home in Samara.
Father Sergius is now preaching on YouTube. on channel «NO.Media from Russia", along with other priests who spoke out against the war, and also leads telegram channel“Just as a doctor cannot help but heal, and a poet cannot help but compose, cannot help but write, a priest cannot help but share his discoveries of the biblical text: I am bursting with energy, and I cannot remain silent,” he says.
Father Sergiy has always been around people, and now he misses that lively interaction. "I'm curious about life," he explains, recalling how he used to go to a film club in his youth. Perspective He studied cultural studies in Samara and received a degree in cultural studies when he was already the rector of St. Tatiana's Church. He says his new knowledge allowed him to "see things more broadly, and the parish's geography also expanded."
We had people from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan… Tatiana's parish was a meeting place for musicians, poets, writers, and artists. Our friend was, for example, Dmitry Kovalenin, a Japanologist who translated all of Haruki Murakami and all of Hayao Miyazaki. We had our own film club. It wasn't the kind of church one traditionally imagines when thinking of an Orthodox church—with lonely, sad-looking grandmothers in headscarves. Our grandparents were lively, eager to keep up with trends, to connect with young people and the creative intelligentsia.
Father Sergiy shared joy with people. Now, he says, "there's no life outside of church services anymore." He also misses the Liturgy: he sometimes dreams of leading services. The last time Father Sergiy served at his friend's church in the Samara region was in the summer of 2023. Then, three months after his retirement, he was no longer able to serve.
The disgraced priest has several other friends who are priests.
- Could they let you serve them once?
- So I can set them up. And I don't want to set anyone up.
Father Sergiy says that his close friend, a priest, was sent for anti-war statements "as if to repent in a monastery" after his parishioners reported him to the local bishop.
I ask the priest how he explained to his children that he no longer serves in the church. He says they discuss how “what’s happening doesn’t make any sense.” does not fit with the Gospel and with God"And older children have critical thinking—they know how to separate the wheat from the chaff." Father Sergius read somewhere that children can't be religious—"they just live in the tradition that mom and dad are accustomed to," and faith comes later.
If parents love to read and read to their child, they will be readers. If they love God and the Church—not the Russian Orthodox Church, but in a global sense, as God intended—then the child will one day love them too. And at first, they will imitate—watch and learn. And I think that if we raised children in an environment where it was forbidden, for example, to humiliate, torture, or kill other people, children would learn this through imitation. And we would live in a different country.
Why did Father Sergius remain in Russia?
Many priests, like Father Sergiy, who are against the war, have left Russia. He considered taking his children to a healthier environment, but he lacks the funds. His wife has been on maternity leave since 2009. The four older children have long been homeschooled—to prevent "propaganda from poisoning them at such an early age." Irina teaches the children their primary school subjects herself. "She's constantly improving—she graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, completed teacher training courses, and now works part-time as a tutor and teacher at a private school," Father Sergiy says. The children also study with tutors, in clubs, and online: it seems the priest feels he has no right to skimp on his children's education and deprive them of a broader perspective.
However, lack of money isn't the only reason to stay in Russia, says Father Sergiy. Another reason is undying hope. He says he would like to see the Samara metropolitan first and foremost as "not an administrator or a businessman in a cassock," but a father. And the same goes for the patriarch.
I look at him [the patriarch] and think: my dear, I expected you to show common sense and stand between the rulers of one state and another and say, "Brothers, do whatever you can, but make peace." Be a peacemaker. The book we read says, "Blessed are the peacemakers." And so, of course, I can leave here, but I will still weep for my family and wait for them to move toward me. I fear that leaving will not bring the joy I seek, because my Church has become ill. Look: everything is done in it to keep the Orthodox people ignorant—merely meat. It is easier to govern such people; such people meekly carry out any will.
Father Sergiy believes that the Church had a chance to reform, to become an institution “where everyone is equal and where everyone’s voice is heard” – at the height of perestroika, when people flocked to churches en masse: “But we rolled back to basic settings and by 2022 we were completely confused.”
В 1988-mFather Sergiy says that the reform project of the All-Russian Council of 1917-1918 could have been addressed. The October Revolution prevented these reforms from being implemented, but one day, the priest believes, the Church will recover and remember how that Council proposed women and laypeople to participate in church governance and conduct services in Russian, not Church Slavonic. Father Sergiy himself sometimes celebrated services in Russian. It's important to him that people understand what is being said to them in church, consider it, and respond, rather than standing there like obedient flocks.
Why was the opportunity missed? Father Sergius explains. learned helplessness, and recalls Edith Eger's book "Choice": in it, former prisoners emerged from a concentration camp and had no idea where to go or what to do. They had become accustomed to having their lives controlled 24/7 by someone powerful and authoritarian. Freed, they no longer knew how to live. According to Father Sergius, both the clergy and the people in Russia in the 1990s were in the same situation: everyone was equally unsure what to do with their freedom. They focused on the wrong things, the priest says:
They point to a vacant spot on the map, not yet occupied by a Sberbank, a pharmacy, or a high-rise building, and say: let's build a church here. Who will go there? It doesn't matter. We'll figure it out later. Who will serve there? Also unimportant. The main thing is to stake out the spots, the main thing is to build monuments to the bishops' ambitions. First the buildings, then the people. But it should be the other way around.
How Father Sergius decided to become a psychologist
When Father Sergiy asked to be released from the ministry, he disappeared into thin air. And the priest's therapist said, "You committed financial suicide in the Metropolitan's office."
Now Father Sergius is being helped by a foundation Peace to allHe also started working as a marketer at an IT company whose commercial director's daughter he had once baptized. He didn't have the necessary training, but the company taught him what it took.
This year, the priest took out a loan to study to become a psychologist. He's currently taking refresher courses and then plans to master one of the psychotherapy methods that's closest to his heart. existential analysis и logotherapyWhen asked why psychology, he answers that at first he was willing to take any job—he was thinking about how to feed his children, but over time he began to think about what was important to him personally, and that was living a useful life.
Father Sergius is not ready to accept the current Church.
- When I see their wonderful actions at the parish to collect nets, underwear, socks, helmets, bulletproof vests for the war, I am taken aback - how is this possible, we are like Raskolnikov, over the same eternal book have been leaning towards it for more than one year.
I ask him how he plans to live his life from now on, since priests never retire. He pauses.
So, it turns out I'm reactive now, right? They're operating in the Church, and I'm sitting there waiting for them to change so I can re-enter? I guess that's my position. But I can't change an institution on my own, and I don't want to integrate into a system of relationships where I'm a slave and where the majority are powerless slaves.
Speaking about the future of the Russian Orthodox Church, psychologist Sergiy argues that there are two ways to live with trauma: you can endlessly recreate it, or you can work through it. In the first case, the Church will continue to "flex its muscles, terrorize everyone, fight, and shout that we're ahead of the rest, while everyone else envies us and wants us dead." His relationship with such a Church is over.
In the second, the Church will ask for forgiveness, "work through the traumas of guilt, misanthropy, and the resentment of others," and "find a human face." And Priest Sergiy, by then also a psychologist, will return to help her heal from these traumas. We are all traumatized—those who participated in the war and those who did not, those who supported those who did not, those who were there and buried their loved ones under the bombs, those who left and those who returned. And I, also traumatized, will stand with everyone, shoulder to shoulder.