An explosion occurred on the grounds of St. Nicholas Church in Moscow, injuring two people. Witnesses say two teenagers may have brought in a bag with an improvised explosive device, and police are searching for them. The Russian Orthodox Church calls it unprecedented and says attacks on clergy and churches are increasing.

Our society is in a grave moral state. One example of this is the explosion that rang out on Sunday evening on the grounds of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Moscow.
As a result of the explosion, 2 people were injured. The injured suffered head trauma and other injuries; they have been hospitalized.
Different versions of what happened are being given.
According to eyewitnesses, the bag containing the improvised explosive device, with a power equivalent to 50 grams of TNT, was brought into the church by two teenagers of Slavic appearance. They left the bag on the floor and quickly went out, and soon after the explosion rang out.
The police are searching for the criminals; their composite sketches have been distributed to all posts.
"It is with regret that we have to state the growing number of attacks on the clergy and cases of theft in churches. At the same time, priests and churches turn out to be the most defenseless before lawlessness. The situation must be changed radically," Father Vladimir Vigilyansky, head of the patriarchate press service, told Interfax-Religion.
The Russian Orthodox Church believes that those who carried out the explosion in the Moscow church in Biryulyovo are greater barbarians than the conquerors of the Golden Horde. "Even the Horde, the conquerors of Rus, did not destroy Orthodox churches. Churches remained untouched during many other difficult periods of our history as well, so it is very painful that in our time of church revival there were people who laid hands on a shrine," Bishop Mark of Yegoryevsk, deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations, told Interfax.
According to him, this is the first such case in modern Russian history. Speaking about the possible reasons for what happened, Bishop Mark suggested that "someone may dislike the active position the Church has taken in recent years, expressing its opinion on a wide variety of issues and trying to take part in resolving the most acute problems of public life."
The bishop expressed hope that this case will remain an isolated one.