COVID-Denying Father Sergei Is Just The Latest Example Of The Russian Orthodox Church’s ‘Holy Man’ Problem

By Katie Kelaidis It’s a weird story, even in 2020—and that’s saying something. Father Sergei, a COVID-denying conspiracy-spewing Russian monk, had, with the help of an ad hoc personal army that includes veterans of the recent conflicts in Ukraine, seized control of the women’s monastery in the Ural mountains he’d founded. Now, he’s been excommunicated. But the …