Ex-NHL star Datsyuk 'holed up at monastery defended by Cossacks with priest who claims Covid is cover-up to microchip population'
Former NHL star Pavel Datsyuk is reportedly among those holed up at a Russian monastery where a priest has seized control and guarded the area with Cossacks after being told to stop services due to his Covid-19 conspiracy beliefs.
Former Detroit Red Wings star Datsyuk, 41, is said to be at Ekaterinburg’s Central Urals Monastery, where according to local media Shiigumen (father superior) Sergius has taken over after ousting the abbess of the convent.
The power grab comes after Sergius was reportedly banned from conducting religious duties because of his claims that the Covid-19 outbreak was a “pseudo-pandemic” and that it was being used as an excuse to microchip the public.
The priest is also said to have complained that the closure of churches in Russia during the coronavirus crisis was done under pressure from “the atheistic authorities.”
Also on rt.com Russian cleric SEIZES CONTROL of convent after being censured for calling Covid-19 an excuse to ‘chip population’On taking control, Sergius reportedly refused entry to local religious leaders while journalists in the area have claimed the site is being guarded by Cossacks loyal to the priest.
In an even more bizarre twist, reports now state that former Red Wings center Datsyuk – who currently plays for hometown club Avtomobilist Ekaterinburg in the KHL – is at the facility supporting the rebel leader.
Sergius is reportedly the hockey star's personal confessor.
"Father Sergius has been my spiritual father for more than 10 years. [He] has a burning, loving heart, he sees me through and through," Datsyuk has said of the priest, Russian media reported.
"He is strict, but also very kind. As before, with my family, we want to come to the Monastery of the Loaves of Bread every Sunday.
"We know that the priest is waiting for me, we can confess to him, take communion, ask him spiritual questions of life, be blessed.
"With the blessing of the priest, many issues are resolved by themselves. I am grateful that God and I gave my family such a spiritual father.”
Datsyuk returned to his homeland in 2016 having spent 15 years at Detroit, helping them to the Stanley Cup in 2002 and 2008. He also won Olympic gold with his country in 2018, as well as World Championship gold in 2012. The hockey star headed back to Ekaterinburg last year after a spell at SKA St Petersburg.
The star now appears to be extending his support to Sergius, who was due to face a Church trial on June 15 but which has been postponed until June 26. The priest is charged with disobeying Patriarch Kirill.
Sergius, a former police officer who previously spent 13 years in prison for murder, is well known among Russia’s Christian community. Notably, he is also the former confessor of Russian MP and former Crimean prosecutor Natalia Poklonskaya.
The priest has shown local journalists around his room at the monastery, where among other things hang portraits of Tsar Nicholas II, Grigory Rasputin, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
When asked why he had an image of Stalin, the priest reportedly replied that it was because the Soviet leader "had destroyed sodomy and lifted up the nation."
