According to estimates by human rights activists, after Russia started his full -scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 in February 2022, hundreds of conservative priests faced because they disagreed with the policies of Russian secular and church officials.
A number escaped from Russia, from fear of prosecution, or by Moscow controlled by Russian Orthodox Church. Other people were imprisoned in Ukraine to speak against Russia’s aggression.
Along with facing classic immigrant challenges, search for the visa to be applied and search to find jobs, escape pastimes faces unique issues because they often do not have transferable skills.
DW spoke with several Russian priests living in exile in Germany to find out how they are favorable for life in their new home.
Cuisine washing and studying German
Father Yakov, whose name has been replaced due to security reasons, was working in a conservative church in the west of Russia since the end of 2010. When Russia invaded Ukraine, he joined the anti-war initiative.
The engagement allowed him to receive a human visa for an Eastern European country shortly before he announced a partial gathering of military reservoirs in September 2022 in September 2022.
“Even though I was not directly prosecuted by Ether Secular or Church authorities, I realized that I had no other possibility of living in Russia … under the current political rule and status in Russian Orthodox Church,” He to DW told.
Yakov said that he had already planned to leave Russia, but after the declaration of mobilization, he had only a few days to pack and run away.
Although pastor can get exemption from military service, he said, even though it was true at that time, he was worried that “Tomorov could complete everything.”
But Yakov struggled to return to his feet in the new country. For several months, he illegally washed dishes, earning just € 3.50 ($ 3.65). Later, he was offered a scholarship to study Germans in Germany, where he is living a synter in September 2023.
Yakov is still concerned about the future. He wants to study in Germany, but he said that his job as a Russian conservative priests is difficult to find a situation anywhere in Western Europe.
“This is possible if you have some decent secular job. For example, if you are an IT specialist priest or a scientific background, it’s much less than a problem,” Heer said.
IT specialist priests and human rights activists
Like dozens of other anti-war priests from Russia, Yakov helps everyone with a non-profit peace, co-founder by Father Valerian Dunin-Barkowski.
In 2024, the organization helped 45 clerics and their families with financial assistance to € 120,000, Dunin-Barkowski said.
“The question of finance is decisive for us. The main thing is that the time is the time. Some need a new profession after being banned from the ministry. Some have to stay in the third country for visa. Need. Their case should be reviewed, so they will be allowed to serve in a new country, “he told DW.
Dunin-Barkowski, now located in Germany, joined the church even while living in Russia.
In 2018, his eldest son was prosecuted for participating in demonstrations organized by the then Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalani, who died in jail in 2024.
“So we realized that we have to leave,” said Dunin-Barkowski. “I got a proposal and left my well -paid position in Moscow for some strange job in Germany. And I have come here from here.”
Now Dunin-Barkowski works in it and serves as a priest in St. Nicholas’ orthodox parish in Dasseldorf, west of Germany.
In his Daseldorf Parish, he said, at least the number of parisians since Ukraine’s invasion has doubled.
Moving from Spain to Germany
Another co-founder of The Peace to All Project, Father Andre Kordochekin, Spain’s capital Madrid has a Russian conservative cleric for more than 20 years, including a parish.
When Russia attacked Ukraine, Cordochin found him at the center of meditation “at the center without any intention,” Heer said.
“Spanish media needed to communicate with someone from Russia. And, the embassy had gone into deep defense at that time, we and our Golden-Domed Church were in the news,” Kordachakin told DW.
Even he was part of the Russian Orthodox Church, importing for him that he was “not sharing the sociological agenda coming to the mainstream in Moscow,” Cardacin said.
Due to anti-war comments, the Russian Orthodox Church suspended him for three months in early 2023.
He felt at the time that “migration from Madrid could be considered a deal.” The Protestant Church in Germany offered him a small scholarship, to Cordochin to Germany, where a postdotoral thesis is working against Ukraine on the whimsical and religious aspects of Russia’s war.
Hard life for pastor from Russia
Coordochekin is a conservative parish rector in Tilberg, south of the Netherlands. His parish comes under the administration of the ecological patriarch of Constantinopal rather than the Russian conservative church.
In 2018, Russia broke the relationship with Constantinopal patriarchy, as it had provided freedom (autocapies) to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which replied to Russia earlier.
But, Cordachakin said, this does not mean that other Russian conservative priests are so easy to work with Constantinopal patriarchy.
It is extremely difficult to move from one patriarchy to another, he said, even though a cleric was first banned from the Russian Orthodox Church. He does not know about a single case of the German province of ecological patriarchy that accepts Ether or Ukrainian priest.
For priests going from Russia to an European country he sees only two options: Ether helps to find an income source that helps a cleric to support his family, or asks for refuge and “of life Shares all difficulties as refugees. “
Both Valerian Dunin-Barkowski and Andre Cordochin believe that many orthodox churchgovers in Germany welcome to participate in a parish outside Russia’s control.
“Thesis Days, a lot depend on people who believe and want to maintain their loyalty to Jesus and Gosachar,” Dunin-Barkowski said,-People, he said, who said, who Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Can do as a supporter “Take T Russia away from them, Russian Orthodox Church” cannot overcome the conservative belief. “
Edited by: Kate Harsin