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One month after the crime, investigators in Moscow seem no closer to solving the murder of a Russian Orthodox priest. Father Daniil Sysoyev was killed by a masked gunman in St. Thomas Church in southern Moscow (pictured). The priest was a high-profile critic of Islam who actively sought Muslim converts, and so suspicion fell on Muslims. Although no one has been arrested, tensions between the church and leaders of the Islamic faith in Russia are rising as Laura Lynch reports. (Photo: Laura Lynch)

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MARCO WERMAN: It’s been one month since the murder of a Russian Orthodox priest in Moscow but investigators still don’t know who did it. The priest was a high profile critic of Islam and so suspicion has fallen on Muslims. That’s raised tensions between the Russian Orthodox Church and leaders of the Islamic faith in Russia. The World’s Laura Lynch reports from Moscow.

[SINGING]

LAURA LYNCH: The faithfuls still gather at Saint Thomas’, a small Moscow church perched on the edge of a ravine that looks more like a log cabin than a house or worship. They pray just steps away from the spot where Father Daniil Sysoyev was shot dead as he finished his service.

[BABY CRYING]

Roman and Jana Ackbayrov’s one-month old, Margareta, squirms as baptismal water is dribbled on her tiny forehead.

ROMAN ACKBAYROV: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

LYNCH: Father Daniil baptized me and my wife, Roman says, and he married us. We wanted him to baptize our daughter. I can’t believe he’s not here now.

Sysoyev was without a doubt a controversial priest driven my missionary seal.

[SYSOYEV PREACHING]

LYNCH: The 35-year-old posted sermons like this one on YouTube and focused his efforts on Muslims. He claimed to have converted 80 of them. He also wrote books warning Christians not marry Muslims and was fiercely critical of Islam. Father Ioan Papadinetz, who has taken over much of Sysoyev’s ministry, says Sysoyev moved easily among the many Muslim immigrants who lived in this working class neighborhood spreading his uncompromising message.

IOAN PAPADINETZ: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

TRANSLATOR: Islam, I’ll quote Sysoyev, there’s no other truth than Christianity. This is what our holy church professes and what every Christian believes. We have no quarrel with Muslims but we believe Islam is not the true faith.

LYNCH: Father Sysoyev himself knew the risks of preaching such views. He once said his life had been threatened 14 times. That’s why many in Russia suspect a Muslim is responsible for his murder. Even though no one has been arrested the case has stoked tensions between the two faiths. Sergei Filatov has studied the development of religion in post Soviet Russia for 20 years.

SERGEI FILATOV: We can see a great level of distrust on the level of the believers and local religious leaders as imams and priests.

LYNCH: In fact6 distrust and wariness increasingly lie just below the public veneer of mutual respect. In these post Soviet days the Russian Orthodox Church has again become central to Russian national identity. But in spite of that it feels threatened by a growing Muslim minority. There are around 20 to 25 million of them mostly in the eastern regions of Russia.

[SINGING]

On a frigid night in Moscow a few hundred Muslims gather in one of the city’s five mosques to pray. That there are only five serving a population of two million is cause for complaint among Muslims. But a greater concern, according to Supreme Mufti Nafigulla Ashirov, was Father Sysoyev. Ashirov doesn’t condone his murder. In fact Moscow’s Islamic leadership was quick to condemn it. But long ago, Ashirov had labeled Sysoyev Russia’s Salman Rushdie.

MUFTI NAFIGULLA ASHIROV: [SPEAKING ARABIC]

TRANSLATOR: He allowed Islam and Islam sacred values to be offended and this of course concerned us greatly. We turned to the church’s leaders to ask them not to allow one of their clerics to attack other faiths in that way.

LYNCH: But Ashirov says the church did nothing. In fact the head of the church, Patriarch Kirill, presided over Sysoyev’s funeral which many took as an implicit endorsement of his work. But in the absence of any arrests the patriarch has warned people not to single out Muslims for blame. Still religion expert Sergei Filotov is concerned about what might happen if a Muslim man is arrested.

FILITOV: I think it can be a great threat if and when the killer will be caught because if it will be a Muslim the situation will be very volatile.

LYNCH: For his part Mufti Ashirov says he too worries about a backlash against Muslims.

ASHIROV: [SPEAKING ARABIC]

TRANSLATOR: Of course because an increased tension between the peoples of the Russian Federation is a very dangerous factor that can lead to unpredictable outcomes. And so we as representatives of the faith, whether it’s the Russian Orthodox Church or Islam, it’s our duty to be responsible in both our actions and our words.

LYNCH: Ashirov is careful to add he still enjoys good relations with the Orthodox leadership and that he believes that Father Sysoyev with his anti-Islam views was an exception.

[SINGING]

Surveillance cameras are now posted outside the church of Saint Thomas around which hundreds of bunches of flowers have been placed in memory of Father Sysoyev. Father Ioan Papadinetz now spends long hours leading services here. He says in spite of the murder there are others ready to step into Father Sysoyev’s shoes.

PAPADINETZ: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

TRANSLATOR: There are many people left here that he educated who gave that missionary zeal to and they will carry on his work. There’s a whole missionary school here, young people not priests, who will continue with re-doubled effort that work that he began.

LYNCH: If that’s true it’s unlikely to help lower the tensions that were building even before Father Sysoyev died on the floor of his own church. For The World I’m Laura Lynch in Moscow.

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