After a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church said that a popular television psychic could alter the consciousness of audience members, Arkhangelsk’s mayor prohibited the popular clairvoyant from hosting an upcoming event in any municipal facilities, state news agency Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported Thursday.
Fatima Khaduyeva — a finalist from a popular Russian television show that pits witches and psychics against other witches and psychics in the ultimate test of their extrasensory abilities — had been scheduled to launch a psychic workshop in the city center starting on Jan. 22.
Khaduyeva reportedly wrote via social media outlets that she has postponed the Arkhangelsk event until March, though she has not yet announced a location.
Representatives of the Arkhangelsk diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church have protested Khaduyeva's impending visit and asked Mayor Viktor Pavlenko to ensure that she is not allowed to host a public event in the city's cultural center.
According to regional church representative Abbot Feodosy Nesterov, any visitors to Khaduyeva's event face the “risk of changes to one's consciousness as a result of a manipulated psyche,” local news site 29.ru reported.
Apparently in response to the local religious leaders' concern, Pavlenko banned Khaduyeva from using any municipal facilities, Rossiskaya Gazeta reported.
Khaduyeva reportedly told her social media followers that this was the first such prohibition she had faced, and the local diocese was the first to interpret her powers in such a way.