Translated automatically by AI from the Italian original.
Tragedy in Rome’s San Saba district, where the body of Nikita Kushnarev, a 43-year-old Russian priest from Vladivostok, was found hanged from a tree in Resistenza park. A passer-by made the grim discovery and immediately raised the alarm.
Kushnarev had arrived in Italy two years ago and was staying at a local college. He was very active on social media. The main hypothesis under consideration by the Flying Squad is suicide, supported by the discovery of several bricks at the foot of the tree that the priest may have used to take his own life. However, investigators are not ruling out other possibilities and are keeping the inquiry open.
Shedding dramatic light on the priest’s final moments was a long, cryptic Facebook post published the day before, in which Kushnarev openly reflected on the difficulties of his spiritual journey, questioning the nature of faith and moments of inner silence and emptiness. The body has been transferred to the Institute of Legal Medicine for an autopsy.
