Search Search. Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan. Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia. Afghanistan Pakistan. Belarus Ukraine. Previous Next. October 16, GMT. By Gregory Feifer. Relations are growing worse between Moscow and the Vatican, which says the conversion into a brothel of an apartment rented out by an order of Franciscan monks is the latest in a campaign to discredit the church in Russia.
The report was accompanied by photographs of a woman in nun's attire with bra and panties showing. The order condemned the reports.
The Franciscans say they, indeed, rented out the apartments after moving to other quarters. They say the apartments were registered under the name of the order's head, Father Grigorii Tserokh, and rented under the understanding that they would be used for charitable work. That's the extent of the truth.
The press kept quiet about the next event, which is that over the past six months, Father Grigorii -- so far unsuccessfully -- has tried to remove the residents of that house of leisure from their apartment and re-establish his rights. Dubinin says the claims are not simply the mistake of one journalist: "In fact, besides that ['Komsomolskaya pravda'] article, which we immediately denied, there was also a television show on channel 1, 'Chelovek i zakon,' and 'Russkii dom' on Moskovie Television, where the Franciscan order was also essentially accused of turning into a brothel.
We feel this is already not one journalist's mistake. As we stated in the protest prepared on the part of the order in Russia, we feel this is a provocation.
