Russian Church urges journalists not to misrepresent story of Pokémon catching in the Church-on-the-Blood

"A young man from Yekaterinburg was arrested for two months by court decision not for catching Pokémon at the church, but for making a video (perhaps it was not the only video) where he quite specifically demonstrates and comments on the whole process, and so on," head of the Synodal Department for Church, Society and Media Relations Vladimir Legoyda wrote on a social network.

Speaking about the incident, he pointed out that Ruslan Sokolovsky is not "an occasional passerby who impulsively came into the church being involved in the game, but is rather a well-known blogger in the city, who works in a Charlie Hebdo style of deliberate provocation. He does not conceal it in his video: he went to see what would happen."

The Moscow Patriarchate representative urged to keep calm, assuring that no one in the Church is "bloodthirsty" against the young blogger, nor finding pleasure in what is "mixed in the souls and minds of our youth who are involved in such nonsense in holy places."

According to Legoyda, priests can and should talk to R. Sokolovsky and try to explain him what a church is and what it’s for, “to help the guy."

"Perhaps, then this frustrated fighter for rights no one has violated will understand what Jesus Christ, Whom he did not hesitate to call ‘the rarest Pokemon,’ brought to man and mankind," Legoyda said.

According to him, the Yekaterinburg metropolitan has already said that he is ready to help the young man figure out the situation, including helping him to learn more about Church life—for example, by participating in the work of the diocesan charitable service.

"May be then he will give up pokémon," Legoyda said.

Turning to journalists, he called on them not to try to make every provocateur into a Nelson Mandela. “It's not fair—to Mandela, first of all," he said.

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