Ural monk-schismatic back in court on new charges
Yevgeny Pinchuk*, a clergyman from Verkhoturye known as Hieromonk Nikandr, has become a defendant in a new criminal case. This spring he was already convicted of publicly justifying terrorism and sentenced to a penal colony. We tell you what the disgraced priest is accused of this time.
Yevgeny Pinchuk was born in 1971 in Yalutorovsk (Tyumen Region). After moving to Sverdlovsk Region, he entered an architectural institute, but in 1995 dropped out and became a monk.
It is known that Pinchuk belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (RPTSZ (A)) — a religious association that broke away from the Russian Orthodox Church.
On the RPTSZ (A) website, it was stated that Hieromonk Nikandr was assigned to the Church of Simeon of Verkhoturye in the Ishim-Siberian Eparchy in May 2013. It was also noted that he joined this religious group from the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Criminal charges were brought against the hieromonk under two articles. They are related to his statements online:
«Public calls to carry out extremist activities» (Part 2 of Article 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation);
«Rehabilitation of Nazism» (Paragraph «c» of Part 2 of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The criminal case will be examined by the Sverdlovsk Regional Court.
Previous legal troubles
Yevgeny Pinchuk has been in the dock before. In March 2022, he was fined under an administrative article for discrediting the Russian Armed Forces. Then the priest became one of the first in Sverdlovsk Region to be convicted in a criminal case regarding fakes about the Russian army (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The reason for the charges was a social media post where he spoke negatively about the special military operation. The hieromonk deleted the publication and later his account, but he was still fined 100 thousand rubles (approximately $1,100 at current exchange rates).
The next time law enforcement came to the priest was in the autumn of 2025. After a search, Yevgeny Pinchuk was taken for interrogation. He was charged with publicly justifying terrorism (Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). This time the basis for the prosecution was a publication where Nikandr approvingly commented on the founder of a nationalist organization recognized as terrorist and banned in Russia.
On 17 October 2025, the Verkhoturye Court sent the hieromonk to pretrial detention. The case was considered in the Central District Military Court of Yekaterinburg. Pinchuk was found guilty and sentenced to five and a half years in a general-regime penal colony.
Two years ago, another priest from Yekaterinburg, Daniil Sidorov, became a defendant in a criminal case. Law enforcement accused him of pursuing women and masturbating. The troubled man would not let his victims go home, touching their hair and intimate areas.
When it became known who exactly attacked the Yekaterinburg woman, Metropolitan Evgeny (Kulberg) of Yekaterinburg and Verkhoturye published a long post in which he called the incident a «devilish «miracle». As a result, Sidorov avoided trial and sentencing by going to the special military operation. We are collecting all information about this story in a separate feature.
* Included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring.
