A Russian Orthodox deacon who supported Pussy Riot is seeking asylum in Prague, news agency 420on.cz reported Saturday.
Deacon Sergei Baranov, from Tambov, drew support from Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg for writing to Patriarch Kirill in protest of the two-year sentencing of the band members, who had staged an anti-Kremlin protest in Moscow's most prominent cathedral.
In the letter, he wrote that he did not want to be in the same church as "liars and posers," the news agency reported. He was subsequently stripped of his ecclesiastical rank.
(MT)