Calgary Russian church target of hate crimes

A Calgary Russian Orthodox church was the target of hate crimes after a man called and said he wanted to “kill them all.”

Dmitry Grygoryev, the pastor at the All Saints Russian Orthodox Church, says his church was the target of a man Calgary police charged on Tuesday.

It happened when Grygoryev received a call Tuesday evening from a man claiming to be from the church.

“I got a call on my phone and a gentleman introduced himself as a member of our parish congregation, and asked ‘Where’s our next meeting?'” Grygoryev said, telling him when it started.

“So he starts to ask, ‘Is there going to be any Russian there?'” The pastor responded, “We have 15 nationalities in our parish, but of course, Russia is going [to] be there,” which was followed by the man saying “we’re all going to be dead.”

Grygoryev says he hung up the phone, but the man called “again and again,” around five times. He finally picked up, telling the man “…there are not only Russians, we have more than 15 nationalities.”

“I’m a Ukrainian citizen, and I’m from Ukraine,” Grygoryev told the man. “He didn’t believe me, he said I was a liar.”

“I asked him to introduce his name, like, ‘what was your name?’ He said, ‘I’m Vladimir Putin.'” Grygoryev responded that Putin was not a member of his parish, but the man asked if he supported the Russian leader.

“‘So you’re supporting what he’s saying about Ukraine,’ he said many things.”

Grygoryev asked him again what he meant, but he was told that “‘You know what I mean, you’re all going to be dead.'”

A photo of Father Dmitry Grygoryev of the All Saints Russian Orthodox Church located in northeast Calgary taken on Oct. 14, 2022. (Tate Laycraft, CityNews photo)

The pastor called Calgary police’s hate crime unit and added that they have “good relations with them” due to vandalism they experienced early in the spring.

Gregoryev said that police were in touch and told him that the man had called other Russian businesses in the city and that they arrested him.

Police have since charged a 36-year-old Calgary man with five counts of criminal harassment, adding that all five incidents are deemed hate-motivated crimes.

READ MORE: Calgary man charged with hate crimes against Russian community

Calgary police’s Matt Messenger with the hate crime unit says Calgary has seen an uptick in hate-motivated crimes, and that hate crimes rise when there are “geopolitical” events happening around the world, most notably the war in Ukraine.

“Anytime something happens overseas, we do see an increase in our workload, people being targeted here, but based on their race,” said Messenger. “If it’s a religious event, or something happening overseas with a specific country, we see things here that people’s ethnicity are targeted for based on [events] such as the Russian-Ukraine conflict.”

“This year, we’ve seen a huge increase in files where both Ukrainian people and Russian people, who are Canadian citizens are being targeted based on their ethnicity.”

Calgary police say over 340 hate-motivated crimes were reported in 2021, a steep increase from 2020, which had 240.

The government of Canada also noted an increase in hate crimes since the COVID-19 pandemic started.

READ MORE: COVID pandemic ‘exposed and exacerbated’ discrimination in Canada: Statistics Canada

Messenger says a hate crime is a personal attack on the person and who they are, and that “it shakes them to the core, it can scare them.”

“People move to Canada to be in a place of comfort and safety from wherever in the world that they come from. And for some reason, people target them. People pick on them for who they are, which they can’t always help or change. And it’s it has a deep effect on the community. You might think it’s one person targeted, but the whole community is affected by it,” Messenger said.

He says Calgary has no place for these kinds of crimes.

“We do not tolerate it. We will not tolerate it. If we can find that you have committed a hate crime or are involved in this, it’s not going to be tolerated in Calgary. There’s no place for it in society,” Messenger said.

When asked about people like the man who called the church, Grygoryev says, “I feel sorry for these people.”

“They don’t know the history. They don’t know what’s going on and the history of this parish,” Grygoryev said.

The church was founded in 1930 by Russians, Ukrainians, Romanians, and other former countries within the Soviet Union, according to Grygoryev.

“We have Ukrainians, and we have lots of newcomers, people who are fleeing from the war in Ukraine. We try and accommodate them and help them out, give them a place to live at least for the first time,” Grygoryev said.

“War is never good, right? It’s a big tragedy for everyone. You know, some people get killed, and people [are] dying from both sides, and it’s been painful for all of them. All of us.”

Messenger says that people who believe they are the victim of a hate crime should not only call police, but get support to work through the experience.

“If you think you’ve been a victim of a hate crime, reach out to your community association, your community group. If it’s a faith group you’re part of, reach out to them, get the support system in place and then call police.”

Anyone with information related to this investigation is asked to call police at 403-266-1234 or leave a tip anonymously through Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

The entrance to the All Saints Russian Orthodox Church in northeast Calgary on Oct. 14, 2022. (Tate Laycraft, CityNews photo)

– With files from Tiffany Goodwein