Popular Russian priest mocked Belarusians

Priest Pavel Ostrovsky serves in the town of Nakhabino, Moscow Oblast, and actively engages in blogging. Besides his YouTube channel, he writes books and periodically appears on TV projects and online shows.

He also runs Threads, where Ostrovsky has 158 thousand subscribers. On July 4, Pavel responded to a post urging Russians not to call Belarus "Belorussiya":

"I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that you believe all people were originally Belarusians and spoke exclusively your only correct language with perfect pronunciation, chewing the only true food — draniki.

If anyone doesn't know, Adam and Eve were Belarusians."

Посмотреть в Threads

Ostrovsky applied to Belarusian soil an approach that Russian propaganda used back in the 2010s. They mocked the theories of some radical Ukrainian authors about the extremely ancient origin of Ukrainians, presenting them as mainstream science to thereby portray Ukrainian identity as a whole as fiction. For example, there was a fake in 2014, according to which Ukrainian historians supposedly believed that the Black Sea was dug by Ukrainians.

Belarusians did not remain silent:

"Striving to be smart, one must not forget to remain human. I haven't read such cringe in a long time."

"Maybe it's enough to humiliate people, an entire nation displeased you?"

One commenter reprinted Ostrovsky's comment, expressed her indignation, and asked him to call the inhabitants of Belarus "белорусы" in Russian, not "беларусы" as Ostrovsky wrote. Even propagandist Ihar Tur liked it.

Посмотреть в Threads

And only a few decided to justify Ostrovsky:

"How many Belarusians write nasty things about Russia here, everything is okay with everyone, no one cancels Belarusians. And here a person joked, taking into account the practice that already exists in a neighboring country, and immediately Belarusians were offended."

But other assessments were more popular — here is the most liked comment:

"Honestly, I'm shocked. The priest essentially insulted us as a whole, accusing us of arrogance."

In 2024, Ostrovsky admitted that during confession, he does not ask unnecessary questions to participants in the aggression against Ukraine:

"So he comes and he says: ‘Father, forgive my sins.’ He came on rotation. And I see tears in his eyes, and I won't ask him anything. ‘Do you forgive?’ — ‘Yes, of course.’”

“I just know cases when they start asking if he looted or swore. I don't know about other priests, I don't want to judge them,” said Ostrovsky.

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