A prayer service held in a village in the Urals on 11 January 2026. Photo: Khantiy Mansiysk Diocese
Coordinated prayers were held across Russia on Sunday “admonishing” women intending to have abortions, according to independent news outlet Mediazona.
The standardised prayer service, “admonishing women intending to destroy the baby in the womb”, was held in multiple cities across Russia and in at least 15 different regions, state-affiliated business daily Kommersant reported.
At one service in a village in the Khanty-Mansiysk autonomous district in the Urals, doll embryos were on display next to the banner of the For Life anti-abortion movement, which offered churches assistance in organising prayer services, Mediazona continued.
The texts of the prayers used in the service came with the approval of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, with one reading: “Let us pray to the Lord that our brothers and sisters overcome by thoughts of infanticide come to their senses, and that they might be delivered from this senseless darkness and repent and understand the truth.”
The services, which will be held annually from now on, were timed to coincide with the day of remembrance for the Massacre of the Innocents carried out by King Herod in Bethlehem, Mediazona reported.
Russia has introduced a number of measures to stigmatise childlessness and abortion in recent years, as Russia’s demographic crisis deepens. These have included doctors being given financial incentives to dissuade teenage girls from terminating unwanted pregnancies and making access to abortion more difficult altogether.
According to the latest available statistics from the World Bank, Russia’s fertility rate in 2023 was 1.4 births per woman, well below the 2.1 children per woman considered to be replacement level in developed countries. Since then, the war in Ukraine has claimed hundreds of thousands of Russian lives, while similar numbers of young Russians have emigrated in order to avoid conscription.
