A priest's best friend: Orthodox clerics pose for calendar with their cute cats
A glossy way to discover more about love and religion: a new calendar, commissioned by a Russian Orthodox website, features 12 priests with their super-cute cats.
It’s an unprecedented way to represent Russian clerics, who are usually not open for such informal coverage, according to Ksenia Luchenko, a journalist at the Pravmir Orthodox website, the author of the idea.
"That's why we did it ourselves. We're not linked to official structures," she told AFP.
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Posted by Ксения Лученко on 2 декабря 2015 г.
“It's all their own cats — nothing was staged. It was whoever had a cat and was ready to pose for a photo,” Luchenko added.
Many priests later asked the author why they weren’t added in the shoot.
“Seeing the result, some call and ask, ‘Why haven’t you invited me? I have a cat like this!” Luchenko told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
The official reaction from the Orthodox Church was voiced by its senior spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin, who said it was "not a great sin."
However, he added: “I wouldn't hang such a calendar on my wall”.
The reaction from the public was also divided. While the majority said the calendar was sweet, some said, “Nothing can help these priests, even cats!”
