Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev announced emigration: “The Moscow world is destroyed”

Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev, deprived of his rank by the Russian Orthodox Church and banned from serving by Patriarch Kirill, announced his emigration to Europe.

“A year and a half of thought and hesitation have passed,” Kuraev said in his blog.

According to him, he still decided not to repeat the path of the hero of the old joke, who “died after three times refusing to board a rescue helicopter.” Kuraev noted that “if the Provider gives an opportunity that is desired by many and inaccessible to many, it is worth accepting.”

Kuraev noted that many of the arguments for and against emigration were even beyond politics for him, but he feels that his “Moscow world has been destroyed.” Now the theologian hopes to alleviate “the pain of lonely old age” by returning to Prague, where he spent several years as a child and where “his parents spent the happiest years of their lives.” In addition, Kuraev hopes to meet with former classmates, and one has already helped with preparations for the move – he purchased a scooter in his name for the emigrant. Kuraev also expects to find work in a new place.

“What can I do? Write, speak, give lectures,” Kuraev noted. “In Russia, this is all more difficult. A triumph of the choral principle.”

He concluded his post about leaving the country with the assumption that his emigration in this sense was for work and, “I hope, seasonal.”

“But for now the thoughts are not about how to settle down there, but about how to amputate here,” Kuraev summed up.