Badra Gunba, the de facto president of Abkhazia, along with his wife and two sons, has been baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church. The sacrament took place at the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow.
According to the news outlet Jam News, the baptism of the Gunba family was originally planned to be held at another site, the Donskoy Monastery. However, due to the lack of an adequate baptistery there, the ceremony was relocated to Sretensky.
The de facto president was baptized by Metropolitan Feognost, who also serves as Chairman of the Synodal Department for Monasteries and Monasticism of the Russian Orthodox Church. “Many years ago, he began his clerical career in Abkhazia, and later actively supported Abkhazian students at the Moscow Theological Seminary,” the outlet reported.
Badra Gunba was baptized under the Christian name Bogdan. Sergei Kiriyenko, the First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Presidential Administration and the Kremlin’s “curator” for Abkhazia, was present at the ceremony. It has not been reported whether he served as the godfather.
Jam News notes that while Abkhazian society generally approved of the de facto leader’s baptism, the majority felt he should have done so at a local church rather than in Moscow.
Some social media users saw this as a repercussion of the protracted conflict between two unrecognized religious bodies: the Abkhazian Orthodox Church, led by Father Vissarion, and the Holy Metropolis of Abkhazia, headed by Archimandrite Dorotheos.
On social media, Gunba’s baptism in Moscow was also viewed as a sign of the Kremlin tightening its control over Abkhazia.