Patriarch Kirill appointed Archpriest Dimitry Vasilenkov, cleric of the St. Petersburg diocese, as the chief military priest of the clergy “who feed the military personnel of the Russian Armed Forces and employees of other law enforcement agencies in the special operation zone” (this is how the authorities of the Russian Federation and the Russian Orthodox Church call the war in Ukraine). Vasilenkov was also appointed Acting Deputy Chairman of the Synodal Department for Cooperation with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies.
The ROC press release does not say whether Archpriest Vasilenkov is right now in one of the occupied territories of Ukraine. It is known that this is not the first military conflict in which the priest personally takes part – he was also on the territory of South Ossetia during the 2008 war, and fought in Chechnya. The Pravoslavie.ru website published a text by Sergei Galitsky about the archpriest, Galitsky also published a book about him “From death to life …” based on conversations with a “military priest”. Vasilenkov told how he was in South Ossetia in August 2008, and also fell into an “ambush of militants” near the village of Elistanzhi in Chechnya at the end of June 2009. At the same time, the priest notes that he "participated personally" in the battle in Chechnya. In the help about him, the Orthodox site also provides this information:
“Father Dimitri participated in the military operation to force Georgia to peace in August 2008, as well as in the counter-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus. In total, from 2006 to the present, he has made more than 20 business trips to the zone of active hostilities. During this time, he baptized more than 900 military personnel and employees of various law enforcement agencies. On June 29, 2009, during one of his business trips, Father Dimitry was wounded in battle. He was awarded the Order of Courage and other departmental and public awards.
It is known that since the beginning of the war, at least three clergymen of the Russian Orthodox Church, who provided “spiritual” support to military personnel, have died . Earlier, a video of “work” at the front of one of the priests, Priest Pavel Dmitrievich Kunitsyn, was published on the network, in which he fires an RPG, stating before that: “The Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary is fighting NATO. Christ is Risen".
Gundyaev himself justifies the war against Ukraine, and also calls on the clergy and believing Russians to pray for the "health" of Vladimir Putin. Pope Francis told how, during a telephone conversation, Gundyaev gave arguments in support of the war. Later, the Russian Orthodox Church published a speech by Gundyaev, in which for some reason he talked about how long it would take the missiles to reach Moscow and complained about the potential expansion of NATO. In April, almost 200 priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) of the Moscow Patriarchate ( the UOC had already separated from it ) demanded that Patriarch Kirill be brought before a church tribunal.