Two Jesuit priests in Moscow found brutally murdered in apartment

Father Messmer may have been killed Oct. 27 since he had returned to Moscow from Germany that night, Father Lombardi wrote.

Concerned about not having seen or heard from the priests, another Jesuit went to their apartment Oct. 28 where he found them dead, wrote Father Lombardi.

Father Adolfo Nicolas, superior general of the Jesuits, called on all Jesuits to pray for their brothers in Russia and for the end to all violence.

The funeral Mass was to be celebrated by Moscow Archbishop Paolo Pezzi the evening of Oct. 29 in Moscow's Immaculate Conception Cathedral.

Father Messmer, a Russian citizen, was born in Kazakhstan. He had been head of the Russian independent region of the Society of Jesus since 2002.

Father Betancourt, an Ecuadorean citizen, studied in Argentina, Germany and Rome and had been working in Russia since 2001.

The two priests worked together at Moscow's Church of St. Louis de France.

© CNS

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