On Sunday morning, an influential Russian priest, head of the church at the headquarters of the Strategic Missile Forces near Moscow, died in Ukraine, the Russian Patriarchate reported.

“On the morning of November 6, 2022, in the area of ​​a special military operation in Ukraine, while performing his pastoral duties, the cleric of the Moscow Diocese, the abbot of the Church of the Great Martyr Varvara and Saint Ilya, p. Muromets – Archimandrite Mykhailo Vasiliev of the Patriarchal yard of the village of Vlasikha, Moscow Region, died,” the cited source reported.

The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill expressed his condolences on the death of Father Michael, the Patriarchate added.

A Russian military priest fought in Ukraine and died from injuries received by a HIMARS missile that exploded next to them, the website of the 76th Guards Airborne Forces of the Russian Federation reports.

“Today, November 6, 2022, Archdeacon Mykhailo Volodymyrovych Vasiliev, who was in combat positions as part of our paratroopers, was injured and died as a result of the rupture of a HIMARS fragment at a distance of three meters from him,” the source said.

Vasiliev’s connection with the Strategic Missile Forces

At the age of 51, he graduated from Lomonosov University and the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.

He was the parish priest of the church of the Great Martyr Varvara and Saint Ilya of Muromets – the Patriarchal courtyard of the headquarters of the Strategic Missile Forces in the village of Vlasikh, Moscow region.

The Russian Patriarchate also notes that as a priest Vasiliev “took part in business trips to hot spots and peacekeeping operations in Kosovo, Bosnia, Abkhazia, Kyrgyzstan, the North Caucasus and Syria.”

Controversial statements late last month

Late last month, he made some particularly controversial statements, saying that Russian women worried about the deaths of their sons in Ukraine should have more children.

In an interview with the Russian TV channel Spas, Mykhailo Vasiliev was asked whether he sympathized with the mothers whose sons were recently mobilized for the war in Ukraine.

“I understand very well that God allowed every woman — in most cases — to have many children,” Vasiliev said, according to Business Insider.

“And if a woman fulfills this commandment of God to procreate, it usually means that she will have more than one child, in most cases. Accordingly, it will not be so painful and scary for her to lose a child,” he added.