Rssn Far East archbishop counts out clerics loyal to ostracized

ANADYR, Chukotka, July 26 (Itar-Tass) - A total of four clerics loyal to the ostracized bishop Diomedes of Chukotka have been barred from service by a decision of the Archbishop Marc of Khabarovsk and the Amur region, who has been temporarily placed in command of the Russian Orthodox diocese of Chukotka after Diomedes's official defrocking.

Archbishop Marc's resolution says archpriest Vassily Baidachenko, hieromonk Spiridon /Bakharev/, priest Alexander Bely and priest Vassily Mezentsev have been barred from service "for breaking the oath they gave during ordaining, for organizing unauthorized meetings at private apartments and participation in them, for disobedience to the hierarchs, and for spreading libel against the Patriarch." The Most Rev Reverend Marc also passed a ruling on the destiny of laymen who maintain spiritual communications with the barred clerics. They are expelled from communications with the rest of the Russian OrthodoxChurch until they repent.

The resolution says the measures against the clerics and the lay will stay in effect until they repent. If they do not, the priests will facethe prospect of defrocking and the laymen will be excommunicated.

The ostracized bishop Diomedes, whom the Council of Hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church defrocked at a session in June for what wasdescribed as actions against the Church, remains on Cape Schmidt.

In epistles uploaded in the Internet, he has leveled sharp criticism at the top hierarchs of the Russian Church for close relationship with the authorities, communications with non-Orthodox Christians, and otheractivities that he classifies as transgressions.

Diomedes is known as a proponent of minimizing the rapport between theChurch and the state.