Leading Moscow Priest Leaves Ecclesiastic Ministry
![](https://seedus2043.gloriatv.net/storage1/mpglbyfb3azb027pd26fnnldpbacz3z5sgzjrdw.webp?scale=on&secure=FirNwjZRyWTU-ZjZgFzV5A&expires=1721015090)
A former chancellor of Moscow archdiocese, general secretary of the Russian Bishops, and former head of Caritas Moscow, he complains about a lack of support from [incompetent] Moscow Archbishop Pezzi. Two psychologists told Kowalewski “to get out of the toxic environment” of Pezzi’s archdiocese. Kowalewski is ready to take any work, “including physical work.”
Kowalewski understood that “if you're trying to do something for this Church, you'll be left in the lurch.” It would have been easier for him, had he concentrated on his own interest, lived on money from outside Russia and told the world about "the great mission of evangelizing Russia."
In Moscow, he was confronted with “huge ambition” and “a lack of professionalism” which resulted in chaos.
He cites the handover of the four buildings on Moscows’s Miliutinsky Lane which Archbishop Pezzi originally reclaimed to sell them in order to be able to buy the historical Peter and Paul Church. But at the end, Pezzi decided to keep the buildings and to develop them with the help of Italian investors. Kowalewski was blamed for this outcome.
He calls himself “a pawn in the perennial games of the Church authorities,” observing that the problem for the Church in Russia is its bloated structures which doesn’t correspond to the needs of the faithful. Further, the Church was unable to occupy its place in society, unlike the Pentecostals.
His conclusion, “We have built a house on sand, and now we are trying to wallpaper it.”