Patriarch Kirill and Metropolitan Tikhon Shevkunov blocked work on a law on combating domestic violence, which was discussed in 2019. As Nestka found out , church hierarchs – Patriarch Kirill and Metropolitan Tikhon Shevkunov, as well as businessmen close to the Russian Orthodox Church, opposed the law. The decision to abandon the law was made after a personal appeal of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to the president, sources told the publication.
The bill was promoted by Valentina Matvienko, but it was never submitted to the State Duma. Work on this law was suspended indefinitely, three people familiar with the progress of its development say, although it was discussed very actively until the end of 2019.
The co-author of the initiative and experts explained why the clergy reacted so negatively to the bill: “If we pass a law, their centuries-old structure breaks down. The male state does not want to lose its power and its levers of pressure on us women.”
According to Nestka sources, after the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church appealed to Putin, “patriarchal media joined the process with [businessman Konstantin] Malofeev and their criticism, [began] active work with social networks.”
A source close to the State Duma notes that “all conservative patriarchal circles, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Turkish businessmen” actively opposed the initiative. Among them, the interlocutors name the “Orthodox businessman” Malofeev, the founder of the Tsargrad TV channel and other ideological projects.
As a result, the Kremlin decided to freeze this initiative, and Matviyenko herself removed it from development, the interlocutors of the publication say.