A group of more than 800 Russian Orthodox priests and parishioners sent a letter to Russian authorities on Thursday, pleading with them to return the body of opposition leader Alexei Navalny to his family.
The letter said continuing to preserve Navalny’s body would be a “callous and inhumane act.”
“Even Pontius Pilate, who, fearing rebellion against the emperor, decided to execute Christ… did not prevent the release and burial of the Savior’s body. Do no more cruelty. [sic] “More than Pilate,” the letter said.
The letter described Navalny as a “man of faith, an Orthodox Christian” and warned that separating his body from his family could cause “further tensions in society.”
Russia’s Roman Catholics also mourned Navalny’s death, an unusually candid move for a church that usually seeks to avoid the harmful attention of the Kremlin.
Lay Catholic leaders in Moscow Said Wednesday OSV News:
The Russian Catholic Church does not speak out on sensitive issues. We’ve been here for centuries and it still feels like we’re in a ghetto, keeping quiet so no one notices. But I sincerely hope that there will be memorial services in other countries – even the Pope will join in the prayers of remembrance.
“While not all Catholics agreed with everything he said and did during his short life, no one could deny his courage,” she said, adding:
But sadly, it seems unlikely that Navalny’s death will spark mass protests and signal a turning point. Many others have died under the current regime, their names already barely remembered by young Russians, while hundreds of political detainees still languish in prisons and forced labor camps. There is.
The Russian Bishops’ Conference did not invite public comment on the “tragedy” of Navalny’s death. Lay Catholics told OSV News they were afraid to speak out more strongly. Russian police are give a thumbs up They have forcibly opposed monuments to Navalny in cities across the country, arresting hundreds of mourners.
People pay their last respects to Alexei Navalny by laying flowers at a monument in Moscow, Russia, on February 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlyanichenko)
Russian authorities announced on Friday that Mr. Navalny had died at the Polar Wolf camp in the Arctic.Mr Navalny is arrested In January 2021, after surviving an assassination attempt using chemical weapons and returning to Moscow, he was sentenced to a series of long prison terms for embezzlement. He was transferred to the harsh Polar Wolf Camp without warning in December 2023, and for most of that month his friends and family were kept in the dark about his health or whereabouts.
Imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny appears on screen via video link from the IK-3 penal colony above the Arctic Circle during his hearing at the Supreme Court in Moscow, January 11, 2024. (VERA SAVINA/AFP via Getty Images)
The prison officials evasive The cause and circumstances of death are listed as “sudden death syndrome.” When they refused to return the body to his family for burial, his allies accused the powerful Vladimir Putin’s regime of ruthlessly inflicting further suffering on his family and concealing the true cause of his death. He claimed that
Navalny’s wife Yulia Navalnaya said in a video statement that Putin likely ordered her husband to be given the Novichok nerve agent again and needed time to erase the evidence.
My husband could not be crushed, and that is exactly why Putin killed him in the most vile way. He didn’t even have the courage to look me in the eye and say my name. And now they are also cowards and hide his body, do not show it to his mother, do not give it to her.
Mr Navalny’s mother Lyudmila Navalnaya, 69, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday demanding that authorities hand over Alexei’s body.she Said On Thursday, she is resisting pressure from Russian authorities to bury her son in secret, away from public scrutiny.
“They are blackmailing me and setting conditions for when, where and how my son should be buried. They want to do it in secret without holding a memorial service.” she said.
Lyudmila said Russian investigators warned him that if he did not agree to a secret burial, the state would “do something unpleasant” with his body. He said he was told to make a decision quickly because “the body was decomposed.”
“They want to take me to a new grave on the outskirts of the cemetery and say, ‘Here lies your son.'” I don’t agree with this. I ask that those of you who loved Alexei and whose death was a personal tragedy give you the opportunity to say goodbye to him,” he told Navalny’s supporters.
Navalny’s mother said she was allowed to see the body at a morgue in the city, but not to request burial.she visited She visited the morgue on Saturday, the day after Alexei’s death, but was told that the morgue was closed and her son’s body was not there.
Navalny’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, said his mother had been presented with a death certificate that said the 47-year-old dissident died of “natural causes.”
