Priest stabbed to death by knife-wielding madman

Pskov, August 5 (Interfax) - The man suspected of killing Orthodox priest Pavel Adelgeim has been arrested, the press office of the regional Interior Ministry Department told Interfax.

The priest's body with stab wounds was discovered at approximately 8 p.m. on Monday in the Church of Konstantin and Yelena on Krasnogorsky Lane.

Officers of the patrol guard service detained the suspect.

According to witnesses, the man, who attacked Father Pavel, screamed that devil told him to kill the priest. The suspect stabbed himself in the chest during the arrest and was brought to a hospital.

A Moscow resident is the murder suspect, the press office of the regional Interior Ministry Department told Interfax.

According to preliminary information, the crime was committed by a young man born in 1986. The man stabbed himself twice after committing the murder and has been admitted to a hospital.

Adelgeim, who turned 75 on August 1, became a priest during the Soviet era. In 1969 he was arrested for circulating self-published religious literature and in 1970 sentenced to three years in the labor camps for "slander of the Soviet order." Adelgeim lost his right leg in 1971 due to unrest in a labor facility and was released with a disability in 1972. Adelgeim became cleric of the Pskov Diocese.

Father Pavel harshly criticized the state of the Russian Orthodox Church and its leaders in recent years.