Father Daniil Sysoyev

Daniil Sysoyev was a Russian Orthodox Priest who was assasinated in Moscow on Thursday, after having received death threats on account of having criticised Islam and converted Muslims to Christianity.

According to  witnesses, Sysoyev's attacker rushed into the temple and shouted: “Is Sysoyev here?” The 35-year-old priest came forward, the attacker pulled out a gun and shot him in the neck and in the head. The assassin left the crime scene walking – he was not running.

Father Daniil died at hospital about an hour later. The priest had a wife and three children.

Sysoyev was an active opponent of the Muslim faith and had strongly critisised Christians  who converted to Islam. In addition the priest had published a number of books attacking Islam in  one of which he wrote that God and the Church condemned marriages concluded with Christians and non-Christians.

Radical Islamic groups started threatening Daniil Sysoyev four years ago. He had allegedly received emails threatening him  and it was reported that an Islamic preacher had issued a fatwa or  death sentence against him. Telephone calls were also made to the temple, in which Sysoyev was serving, stating that the priest would be killed if he continued to publicly express his negative attitude to Islam.

"I have received 10 threats via e-mail that I shall have my head cut off (if I do not stop preaching to Muslims)," Sysoyev stated on a television program in February 2008, according to Interfax. "As I see it, it is a sin not to preach to Muslims."

"Islam is far from being a religion in the way we understand it," he said in one of his video lectures posted on YouTube (in Russian).

"Islam can be rather compared with projects like National Socialism or the Communist party seeking to create God's kingdom on Earth using humanly instruments,"

Sysoyev's books included "An Orthodox Response to Islam" and "Marrying a Muslim," in which he advised Russian women against taking a Muslim partner.