From a stoker to an "archimandrite" who arranges orgies and posts gay porn. Who is the religious swindler arrested in Vitebsk region?

According to a recent press release from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a 40-year-old resident of Vitebsk region organized a network of pseudo-religious organizations (some of which were even recognized as extremist). To collect funds, he actively used social networks: he offered paid online and offline rituals, and collected donations for the "arrangement of a temple".

All the money, as the security forces claim, went to alcohol and the organization of group orgies, in which the sect leader personally participated. Moreover, he did not warn his partners about his positive HIV status. Furthermore, the man is accused of violence against an acquaintance whom he drove to thoughts of suicide.

The detainee was placed in a temporary detention facility. The police noted that he had previously served time for theft of religious items, distribution of pornography, and lewd acts against minors.

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The "Archimandrite" and former stoker

The detainee turned out to be Yury Uladzimiravich Krot (also known as Alyaksandr Sakalou and Heorhiy Krot), born in 1985. He is a native of the Mogilev region. Until 2012, Krot worked as an ordinary stoker in Hlusk, but then decided to radically change his profession, choosing a much more lucrative niche — religious fraud.

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Yury Krot and a "hierarch" of a schismatic church who consecrated him.

The beginning of his "spiritual" career was spectacular. In November 2012, Krot somehow managed to gain the trust of the "patriarch" of the schismatic "Russian True Orthodox Catacomb Church," who had been defrocked for stealing church property. That man not only accepted the former stoker into his group but immediately consecrated him as "Bishop of Minsk and Polotsk, acting Exarch of All Belarus."

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Having received the document, Krot began to tour the Bobruisk eparchy: he introduced himself as a cleric of the Georgian, Abkhazian, and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches, conducted private services, baptized children, consecrated cars, and, of course, collected donations. Parishioners gave him not only money but also valuables and computer equipment.

As Father Siarhei, a priest of the Bobruisk eparchy, later explained, Krot was extremely convincing. He had once served as an acolyte at a monastery in Ukraine, where he learned the order of rituals and church vocabulary. In addition, the swindler gathered gossip about local priests and skillfully manipulated this information, gaining people's trust.

Repentance, recidivism, and the first criminal case

The "bishop's" career in Bobruisk ended quickly. When a local church was robbed, the police also checked Krot. He was not involved in the robbery, but his fake documents, which he had acquired in Moscow, came to light. An official inquiry to the Georgian Patriarchate confirmed: no such priest exists.

In December 2012, Krot wrote a letter of repentance. He confessed to fraud, swore to find secular work, and vowed not to wear a cassock again.

The schismatic church that consecrated him also expelled him from its ranks with the formulation: "for theft, deceiving believers, and homosexual behavior."

But the craving for church money was stronger. In 2015, Krot reappeared in the Bobruisk region: dressed as a priest, he rode in a taxi for several hours "on church business," after which he fled without paying, leaving the driver only his photo and an autographed Gospel as a memento. The Belarusian Orthodox Church then issued an official warning about the swindler.

The "Skete" in Kozlovichi

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In 2019, Heorhiy Krot resurfaced in the Vitebsk region. His appetites had grown: he now called himself "Abbot of the Skete of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos" and actively collected money online.

As early as January 2018, Krot created a VKontakte community called "Annunciation of the Mother of God" to collect funds for the restoration of a mythical "skete." The locality specified is Kozlovichi, Haradok district, 30 km north of Vitebsk. The community still exists and has almost 4 thousand subscribers — a quite large audience for such specific content.

It was this page, previously blurred, that the security forces showed in a recent video of the 2026 arrest. The group's motto sounds quite ironic considering the author's biography: "Sins are like walnuts — you crack the shell, but the kernel is hard to extract."

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As an operational photo by the Ministry of Internal Affairs showed back in 2019, the "temple" where Krot conducted paid baptisms and funeral services was an ordinary room in a residential building, densely hung with icons.

The end of his 2019 tour was ignominious: Krot left a rented apartment in the Orsha district, taking with him the owners' clothing, household appliances, as well as 6 icons and 8 church books.

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During the arrest, another piquant detail emerged: on one of his personal social media pages, the "archimandrite" was posting porn videos.

At that time, cases were initiated against him for theft and distribution of pornography, and an investigation began regarding lewd acts against minors.

Павялічыць

Apparently, after serving his sentence for the 2019 crimes, the former stoker quickly returned to pseudo-religious activities, again collecting donations and holding orgies.

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