Russian Catholic prosecuted for publishing Pope’s prayer for peace

Konstantin Jankauskas, a deputy from the Zyuzino district, will have to appear in court on August 26 for posting on his Facebook profile the Pope’s plea on the day of the consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Virgin. He is accused of “discrediting the armed forces”. With a long history in political life, in the past he was in contact with a movement close to Navalny and was arrested on several occasions. Kirill will not travel to Kazakhstan and avoids the meeting with Francisco.

Moscow () – In Moscow, a deputy from the Zyuzino district was fined and prosecuted for discrediting the armed forces. This is the Catholic Konstantin Jankauskas, who is accused of having published Pope Francis’ prayer for peace on his Facebook page, on the day of the consecration to the Virgin, March 14, asking for the end of the action military in Ukraine. In the last few hours, news also came from the Russian capital, confirming that Patriarch Kirill will not attend the congress of religious leaders in Kazakhstan in mid-September. Therefore, the prospect of a new meeting with the Pontiff has vanished, which, according to sources from the Moscow Patriarchate, cannot be “on the sidelines” of another event, but must be “independent” and prepared “very carefully”. . In any case, a delegation from the Russian Orthodox will be present at the interreligious event in which Francis will intervene.

Returning to the Jankauskas case, he recalled that “the city that bears the name of the Virgin Mary to which we direct our prayers, Mariupol, has become a city-martyr of the war that destroys souls and devastates Ukraine. With the heart full of pain, I join my voice to that of ordinary people, who ask for the end of the war. In the name of God, let the voice of those who suffer be heard, let the attacks and bombings stop”, he wrote, citing the words spoken by the pontiff during the consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The appeal hearing in the Zyuzino court will be held tomorrow, August 26. And Konstantin confesses that “he doesn’t really know what to say to the judge: how is it possible that a prayer for peace and life is a discredit for someone? It seems absurd to me, it’s like an attempt to rule that something is black, despite to what is white”.

Jankauskas is 40 years old and was born in Moscow into a family of Lithuanian origin, as evidenced by his surname, of Catholic tradition. A market economist, he earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the MGU University School of Philosophy, focusing on the relationship between the state and civil society. Active in politics, he is a member of the organizing committee of the “December 5 Party”, an unofficial liberal movement that commemorates the date of the Bolotnaya Square demonstrations in 2011, the first to spread the anti-corruption slogans of blogger Aleksei Navalny. participates in the “Solidarnost” movement, which refers to the famous Polish trade union.

Konstantin has been a deputy of the Zyuzino municipality since 2012 and was re-elected in 2017. In addition, in 2014 he ran as a candidate for legislator of the Moscow Duma. However, his candidacy was blocked by a criminal charge related to the financing of the campaign of the Navalny group, when it obtained more than 30% of the votes in the Moscow mayoral elections in 2013, the best result of the opposition in the Putin era. He denounced that the accusation was false and fabricated, but he was put under house arrest for a few days, just on the date that he had to present his documents to be a candidate in the elections. He made a new attempt in 2016, in the State Duma elections, obtaining fourth place in the single-member constituency with 8.22% of the vote.

In 2019 he tried again to run for Parliament. During the election campaign, the home of his parents and his grandmother was raided, and he himself was arrested four times. Between 2020 and 2021 he was placed in preventive detention again for the so-called “sanitary action”. At that time, with the excuse of preventing the spread of Covid, mass arrests of protesters were carried out, who took to the streets in support of Navalny, after his poisoning and arrest upon his return to Russia.

On this occasion, Jankauskas was recognized as a “political prisoner” by the Memorial association, later dissolved by the Moscow court at the request of the authorities.

His father, Stasis Jankauskas, married to the journalist Olga Gorelik, was also a university professor and never hid his religious convictions, for which he was fired several times at the time of Soviet atheism. Konstantin’s relatives invite all interested persons to attend the trial for “papal disrepute”. Many will join the desire for peace that is not only of Catholics, but of all people of good will both in Russia and in Ukraine and the whole world.