Russia has jailed former Orthodox priest for 21 years

Russia has been jailed for 21 years by a former Orthodox priest

by Ann Chime

It was reported that the 01A court in Russia has been jailed for 21 years by a former Orthodox priest, who adopted 70 children and committed a series of rape and abuse against them.

Priest Nikolai Stremsky, well known as the man with Russia’s ‘largest family’ and was decorated with a national Order of Parental Glory, has been convicted of raping several children and other violent acts in his parish in the Urals in south-west Russia.

The investigation confirms, that As an abbot in the town of Saraktash, Stremsky and his wife ran a foster home from the early 1990s, adopting children from orphanages in the region. Most of the 70 children they adopted are now adults.

He was arrested in 2019 and investigated for offenses against seven minors, as at the time he condemned the allegations against him as slander. Sentencing Stremsky to prison in a penal colony, the court in Saraktash on Friday, December 24, banned him from working with children for 20 years and removed his national parenting honor. He was also banned from the priesthood.

Recall, according to the Russian state media agency, TASS, in 2020, one of his grown-up adoptive children and her husband were given suspended sentences for illegally restricting children of their liberty while they lived with Stremsky.