ULTRA-NATIONALIST PRELATE DIES.

Publication: Monitor Volume: 1 Issue: 128

The Office of the Patriarch of All-Russia and Moscow has reported the death from a heart attack November 2 of the Metropolitan Ioann (Snychev) of St. Petersburg and Ladoga. A Russian born in southern Ukraine, Ioann became Metropolitan of St. Petersburg in 1990. (2)

Ioann made his name by virulent anti-Western statements and articles in ultranationalist publications such as Zavtra and Sovetskaya Rossiya. He endorsed as "authentic" the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," accused the West of conspiring against Russia, and opposed the independence of former Soviet republics. Ioann bestowed Church blessings on ultranationalist political groups, most recently Aleksandr Rutskoi’s Derzhava.

Shevardnadze Declares Victory.