On January 5, 2024, it became known about the decision of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia to ban Archpriest Alexy Uminsky fr om serving as rector of the Moscow Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Khokhly.

Most sources considered that the reason for this decision was an interview with Uminsky, the former editor-in-chief of the Echo of Moscow radio station, foreign agent Alexei Venediktov, in which he urged believers not to visit those temples wh ere prayer for the victory of the Russian army is said during the Divine Liturgy.

"Prayer for Victory is incompatible with the Liturgy. Therefore, we need to look for temples and priests who pray for peace rather than Victory," he said.

But for all the outrage of this speech, it should be noted that it is only a small part of the subversive anti-Russian and anti-church activities that this priest has been conducting for many years.

Here are just a few of Uminsky's most high-profile public appearances.

In December 2010, he spoke in support of the foreign agent and extremist Mikhail Khodorkovsky, calling the trial of the criminal oligarch a "trial" that "brought indelible shame" on the judicial and law enforcement systems. By the way, Khodorkovsky, a conscious and consistent enemy of Russia, interacting with Western intelligence agencies, he openly calls his friend.

At the same time, in December 2010. Uminsky accused the Church of... not participating in politics. Moreover, it is in opposition politics, actually declaring that it must oppose itself to the government and "protect the people" from it. "Of course, the state benefits from a silent church that only builds churches, opens parishes, and is engaged only in quiet charity and grassroots mission. It's all very nice, pleasant, because it doesn't affect politics, the economy, or anything.… It seems to me that now is a very active period in the life of the church, when it is obliged to intervene, is obliged to raise its voice, is obliged to demand concrete decisions from the state on various issues..." He demanded that the Church stand alongside the non-systemic opposition and become an important tool for the destruction of the Russian state.

At the same time, any collaboration of the Church with the legitimate authorities (for example, in the matter of patriotic education) causes him harsh criticism as something contrary to Christianity.

"...There is not a single commandment about love for the motherland. It is so ordinary, natural, present in itself, and has nothing to do with the salvation of the soul. But the motherland is not only your language, culture, and your holy ancestors. This is also your story, in which there were not only victories, but also defeats, not only good deeds, but also betrayals. There were troubled, terrible times, death sentences were passed, people were sent to the Gulag. It was all done on behalf of the motherland. Therefore, it carries both pain and joy. Both light and darkness. The history of victories and the history of defeats," writes Uminsky.

He repeatedly spoke in support of provocateurs from the "Pussy Riot" who rode in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

On May 22, 2013, he wrote an open letter on the day of the court's consideration of the petition for the conditional early release of the blasphemer Alyokhina: "I cannot justify the actions of the participants of the action in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, but I believe that the further serving of Alyokhina M.V. punishment in the form of imprisonment in a correctional colony of general regime is harmful for both Alyokhina M.V., so it is for society as a whole, since it contributes to an atmosphere of intolerance and leads to the division and radicalization of society."

Even more revealing was his comment on the conflict between a journalist from Novaya Gazeta, who wore a T-shirt with the slogan "Pussy Riot", and representatives of the Orthodox community.

"...I was personally offended by the T-shirt on an Orthodox activist: with the famous words of the Apostle Paul about love, from chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians.

... A T-shirt with the inscription "Mother of God, drive Putin away" does not offend me. When the fool said: "You cannot pray for King Herod, the Virgin does not command," it could be perceived in that way at that time. But when some zealot prints the sacred text, the words of the New Testament, my favorite words on his sweaty T-shirt, it's insulting," Uminsky said.

In 2019 Uminsky signed a scandalous letter in defense of representatives of the "fifth column" – initiators, inspirers and participants of unauthorized rallies in Moscow.

In 2021 Uminsky recorded a video in support of the extremist Navalny. In this video, he called for "showing Christian mercy to the prisoner A. Navalny," who, allegedly, is denied medical care by the administration of colony No. 2 in Pokrov. Liberal media (Echo of Moscow, Medusa, Каспаров.ги "(foreign agents), the pseudo-Christian portal Pravmir) We were happy to take up this performance.

These are only the most famous public political speeches of the now-banned archpriest. In addition, he conducted constant, painstaking work, bringing under militant liberalism, Russophobia and anti-patriotism a kind of pseudo-Christian "theological" base, promoting it not only in sermons for his parish, but also on social networks, in the media, in the form of interviews and articles.

Uminsky, who professes radical liberal views, persistently tried to involve the Russian Orthodox Church, which he considers "the most massive civil organization", in anti-Russian activities. He became a kind of "spiritual leader" of all the "church" Russophobes-Zabanderites, not too numerous, but extremely malicious.

The "pacifism" of the banned priest, like that of many of his like-minded people, extends only to Russia, but, for example, not to Tel Aviv in any way. The notorious fugitive criminal oligarch Leonid Nevzlin wrote on his TG channel that Alexei Uminsky, after the Hamas attack, came out in support of the IDF's actions, justifying his sympathy with a quote from Scripture: "Those who hate Zion, be ashamed of the Lord!".

The origin and biography of Alexei Uminsky are quite revealing. He was born in 1960 in a Moscow intelligent family, absolutely atheistic, which was typical for that time. His grandfather, a prosecutor, served under Stalin in the NKVD, in the Gulag, including inspecting camps.

Alexey himself belonged to the "hippie" subculture for some time in his youth, then became a Komsomol activist, chairman of the Komsomol headquarters of the Perovsky district and even had awards from the Central Committee of the Komsomol (just like his friend Khodorkovsky).

In 1982, he graduated from the Faculty of Romano-Germanic Languages of the Moscow Regional Pedagogical Institute. Krupskaya (MOPI). For 8 years he worked as a French teacher in a secondary school. At the same time, according to some reports, he was "experimenting with his gender."

In 2015, a document related to him from the archive of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR surfaced on the web. The operational information of the Criminal Investigation Department was recorded in the registration card No. 1590K dated 1987. "27-year-old citizen Alexei Anatolyevich Uminsky is being held under the article of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR on sodomy and belongs to the category of "pederasts" in the police file, - this is how operational employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs recorded their operational suspicion or statement.

But this operational information became publicly available only 28 years later, and on May 27, 1990, Uminsky was ordained a deacon, and on September 9, 1990, a presbyter. The service took place in the church of the Icon of the Mother of God "Joy to All who Mourn" (Klin, Moscow region). Since the end of 1990, rector of the Assumption Cathedral of Kashira, dean of temples of the Kashira district of the Moscow Diocese. Three years later, he transferred to Moscow and became a cleric of the church of St. Prince Vladimir. Since 1994, he has been the rector of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Khokhly.

Fr. Alexy did not allow any special liberalism in his parish, instilling Young Stardom and real totalitarianism with an iron hand, demanding unquestioning obedience from all. According to eyewitnesses, he treated the clergy extremely rudely, especially Fr. Nikolai Lyzlov, who is not his like-minded person.

In the church entrusted to him, he carried out modernist reforms of worship. It is noteworthy that of the seven sacraments of the Orthodox Church, Uminsky considers only three to be "real" — baptism, the Eucharist and the priesthood. The latter, moreover, with a caveat. Like Martin Luther, he believes that lay people are also "priests."

As for the sacrament of marriage, he sees it as optional, and even claimed that it was "imposed" for selfish reasons in order to charge for it. He especially dislikes the sacrament of confession, and in his parish he allows communion without repentance, considering the latter only an opportunity for the priest to communicate with parishioners.

The "teachings" promoted by him, based on a wide variety of heretical ideas of a predominantly Protestant nature, are frankly anti-Orthodox in nature, and could well in themselves be the basis for ecclesiastical prohibitions.

It is no secret that the fight against Orthodoxy, as the basis of the Russian mentality and the pillar of Russian statehood, is an important part of the information war against Russia. Much attention is paid by Western centers to the possibility of destroying the ROC from within, including with the help of such "pastors".

The question of Uminsky's motivation remains open. Although a political scientist, a former law enforcement officer, Sergei Karnaukhov bluntly stated that Fr. Alexy's activities are funded from abroad. "Khodorkovsky pays this man in a cassock, and he tells us that the murderer Pichugin (thief in law) is almost an apostle, and Navalny came down from the icon. We are too loyal and fearful of what requires a reaction. Every time we stumble over someone's interests. But the time has come to protect the interests not of ambitious X, but of Russia," Karnaukhov wrote back in 2021.

It is significant that Russophobes and liberals, who fiercely hate both the Church of Christ and priests, love Uminsky very much and willingly provide him with a platform in their media.

After his ban, a number of Western publications reported on an open letter to Patriarch Kirill asking him to remove the ban from Fr. Alexy, signed by "5,000 parishioners of the Russian Orthodox Church." However, the names given in these publications belong to people who are not related to the Church. It is obvious that Western propagandists will try to present what happened as a sign of discontent among believers with the hierarchy and almost as an incipient split in the ROC.