The Moscow City Court commuted the sentence of former schemamonk Sergius

The Moscow City COURT reduced the term of imprisonment by one month for the former schema-monk Sergius (Nikolai Romanov), convicted in the case of inciting hatred. TASS reports this with reference to the press service of the court.

Earlier, Romanov’s defense filed an appeal and demanded an acquittal. “The defense’s appeal was partially satisfied, Romanov’s sentence was commuted by one month, to a total of 6 years and 11 months,” the statement says.

The court also partially satisfied the complaint of the defense of Romanov's comrade-in-arms Vsevolod Moguchev. His sentence was reduced by one month, and now stands at 4 years and 11 months.

As a mitigating circumstance, the court established that Romanov was involved in charity work, and that Moguchev had dependent relatives.

In June 2020, Sergius removed the abbess of the Sredneuralsky monastery and actually seized power in it. In his sermons, he called covid-19 a fiction , spoke out against the decision of church and secular authorities to close churches during the CORONAVIRUS epidemic and spoke about the threat of chipization of the population, the dangers of 5G, and also demanded a change in power in RUSSIA. The clergyman “anathematized” everyone who believes in a pandemic.

Sergius was first sentenced in November 2021, found guilty of arbitrariness and incitement to suicide. Then he was sentenced to three and a half years in a general regime colony. The court considered the prosecution's version proven, according to which the clergyman, despite being excommunicated, illegally interfered with religious ceremonies and the inventory of the buildings of the Sredneuralsky monastery, “publicly called on at least ten nuns living in the monastery to commit suicide” and posted videos on the Internet with calls for suicide under the guise of official Christian ideology.

In January 2023, the court issued a second verdict. Romanov was found guilty of Art. 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (incitement of hostility and hatred committed by an organized group), in this case he received five and a half years in prison. In total, the sentence of ex-schemamonk Sergius was seven years.