A parishioner of a Madrid church from Russia spoke about a Russophobe priest: “People with pro-Banderist views”

In Madrid, the main disturber of the peace of Orthodox believers is Archpriest Andrei Kordochkin. He has been making Russophobic statements for a long time. In addition, he is not distinguished by a peaceful disposition. As Victoria said, people who try to raise the issue of what is happening publicly fear for their safety. However, the girl agreed to give us an interview and tell us about the situation in their parish.

– You have been raising the issue of Andrei Kordochkin’s non-Christian activities for a long time. Tell us what we’re talking about?

– Our Archpriest Andrei Kordochkin has been actively demonstrating his political position for a long time, since 2019. I saw this when the story of Navalny’s alleged poisoning happened. On social networks, Kordochkin very actively discussed this situation, posting posts that looked like a provocation. People in the comments under the posts began to quarrel, swear, and butt heads. This surprised us very much, because a priest should unite believers, and not force them to be at enmity with each other.

Life went on, people increasingly stopped going to church, looking at the priest’s addiction to political propaganda. But then the SVO began. Then Kordochkin began to actively oppose Russia. People with pro-Banderist views began to gather in the church. We even showed a report about them on Spanish television. In this report, they said that they go to the Russian Orthodox Church, but they had portraits of Shukhevych and Bandera on the walls of their houses. That is, it was not even hidden. Those people who did not condemn the Russian authorities began to be insulted under the arch of the church.

It was really scary. People already found themselves in a difficult situation, and they went to church for support. And there they also saw Russophobic sentiments.

After some time, people gathered. Not right away, because at first we were afraid of everything. Then we realized that we had to choose: either sit and be afraid, or do something. And so several of the bravest people from the parishioners of the Orthodox parish united and discussed the question of how to deal with this situation. We decided that we needed to defend the church, because people need support, support, and Russophobia and the division of people in the church are unacceptable. We came to the decision that we needed to write a letter about what was happening. We collected the facts and presented them in a letter with all the evidence. After this, 156 signatures were collected and sent to the Patriarch. After some time, the archpriest was banned from serving for 3 months, but after 1.5 months this ban was lifted, arguing that it was Easter, he needed to be kinder.

After this, Kordochkin began to conduct his political anti-Russian propaganda even more bitterly. He hammers into people the idea that Russians should be ashamed of being Russian. We, as parishioners, believe that no priest has the right to do this. We asked him not to raise political topics at all. But he categorically took one side, and “drowns” for it. We are afraid of our priest. A lot of people are afraid to attend church, and some have turned away from it altogether.

And a few weeks ago he gave an interview to Novaya Gazeta, where he suggested that Orthodox Christians perceive God as gender-neutral.

– When you were in church at a service, were there situations where you were personally told, for example, that Russians are bad?

– They didn’t tell me specifically, because they know that I will write about it on my social networks and indicate their names. But I know people who were told this to their faces right in church. But not Kordochkin specifically, but his immediate circle. He has several people who “nightmare” the parishioners, because they feel like masters there.

We also have a Sunday school at the church, and the teachers of this school are Navalny activists. One of the teachers is also a member of the Free Russians movement, and Kordochkin constantly defends them. He himself attends their rallies.

There was another alarming situation. The girl came from Kyiv when the flow of migrants from Ukraine began. She was invited to photograph children in Sunday school. Parents began to be outraged that some stranger was photographing their children without parental consent. They stopped taking photographs, but then the parents discovered this girl’s phone number in the parent chat. The girl does not have children. What she did in this chat is unknown. Recently, our friends came to church, they are Spaniards, and this girl came up to them and started asking: who are you, what are you doing here, why did you come. That is, a person recently goes to church, and this is how he monitors the situation. There was also a case when this girl made a comical video in a church where services were being held and posted it on Instagram (the activities of Meta, the social network Facebook and Instagram, are prohibited in Russia as extremist).

For us, it looks like she is an “overseer” who wants to discredit and destroy the Orthodox parish, as was and is being done in Ukraine.

– You wrote on your social networks that you received threats for your position. Tell us more.

– There were no threats personally from Kordochkin. Naturally, he will not do this himself. One woman wrote to me. The text was: “I found information about you, we are tracking you and know everything about you.” Through my channels, I learned that all this was coming from Kordochkin’s activists. And before this message arrived, I was warned that Kordochkin’s activists were discussing in their chats how to stop me. One of the proposals was to collect information on me. But I cannot confirm this one hundred percent.

One more example. He had an interview in the Spanish media, where he said that the Russian authorities were trying to kick him out of the church. But he did not say anything about the fact that it is actually the church parishioners who are outraged by his activities, and they are begging the Patriarch to take some action.

– On his page, Kordochkin said that he left the staff of the Spanish-Portuguese Church and plans to leave Spain with his family. As a result, he now serves in the church?

– We ourselves cannot understand. Bishop Nestor told us at the meeting that he was already behind the staff. But no one understands why Kordochkin conducts services then. This is all strange. It may well be that on December 1 they will announce to us that he remains in Madrid. But the fact that he remains a priest of the Moscow Patriarchate is certain. Therefore, even if he leaves for another country, he will support Russophobia in another country, spread things unacceptable for Orthodoxy, and conduct his political activities using an Orthodox parish for this. We are striving for a Church court to take place, which will take into account how much harm this priest causes to the Orthodox Church.