Rural Priest Becomes Popular Blogger

The large and well-known Solyakov family lives in the village of Novoye Yegoldayevo near Ryazan. Denis Solyakov, known in the church as Father Dionisy, runs the successful farming blog “The Farming Days of a Priest.” He also takes part in musical programs on central TV with his family choir. The choir is large because Denis and Nadezhda Solyakov have 10 children. The story of how a rural priest became a successful blogger is in a YA62.RU report.

Denis Solyakov is proudest not of his success in the virtual world, but of the restoration of St. Nicholas Church and the positive influence his blog has on people. He says he once was even able to help a person who was on a dating site and wanted to take his own life out of loneliness.

In addition, by showing without embellishment the hard peasant labor and the life of his large family in a village near Ryazan, he wants to show that a priest is not a man in a Maybach, but an ordinary worker.

Father Dionisy does not understand the extremely conservative position of the Church when clergy refuse modern technologies and ways of conveying information:

“Obviously, they are waiting for parishioners in church. But how will they come to church if today everyone sits in social networks? So we need to ask ourselves this question: where are we to catch Christian souls, huh? Precisely where they mostly spend the most time.”

This approach has indeed borne fruit. Now the number of parishioners at their church has increased, and more donations have begun to come in for its restoration. But preaching is not the only reason; the goal was also educational. Father Dionisy wanted to show his children that topics of faith and honest labor are interesting to people, and that a successful blogger and person is not only a city dweller talking about video games, travel, or cosmetics.