This has been a crazy story as the Russian authorities clamp down on protest in the form of the punk band Pussy riot.
You can read the full text of Yekaterina Samutsavich’s closing statement here. Powerful stuff. A couple of excerpts:
In our performance we dared, without the Patriarch’s blessing, to combine the visual image of Orthodox culture and protest culture, suggesting to smart people that Orthodox culture belongs not only to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarch and Putin, that it might also take the side of civic rebellion and protest in Russia…
…In the end, considering all the irreversible political and symbolic losses caused by our innocent creativity, the authorities decided to protect the public from us and our nonconformist thinking. Thus ended our complicated punk adventure in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
the soapbox 