According to the Orthodox Eastern Church, the spirit of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin now ought to have embarked in heaven or hell. The religion believes it takes 40 days after death for souls to reach their final destination, a threshold that the once hotdog seller reached on 1 October.
Dozens of everyday Russians and fighters gathered in Moscow and several other Russian cities to mark the occasion, amid notable silence from officials and state media. Prigozhin, who died in a plane explosion weeks after having led the biggest mutiny Russian president Vladimir Putin has faced in his 22-year rule, is thought to be buried at Porokhovskoye cemetery in St-Petersburg .
Makeshift memorial to Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin in Moscow ( Platel / CC by SA 4.0 )
No Orthodox Saint
It would be mistaken to believe that the mercenary boss was a strictly abiding orthodox during his life, however. Aside from a track record that would have questioned most claims to piousness, Prigozhin and his troops largely practiced Slavic neo-paganism , or Rodnovery, an ideology closely linked to nationalist sentiments within the Russian military, especially special forces and security forces.
Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church were quick to shed doubt on the mercenaries’ faith following the failed mutiny on 23 June, when heavily armed Wagner troops in Ukraine advanced north toward Moscow, capturing the town Rostov and even nearing a Russian nuclear base .
Patriarch Kirill’s vicar, Bishop…
