Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, once a leading spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, died suddenly of a stroke on January 26 at the age of 51. The archpriest, a fierce critic of both Islam and Western secularism, was dismissed from his post as head of the Moscow Patriachate’s department for Church and Society because of disagreements with Patriarch Kirill; he later complained that he had been frozen out of access to the Russian media.