Priests stabbed to death in Moscow

Two Jesuit priests were stabbed to death while sharing a meal in their Moscow apartment, it emerged today.

“They were brutally murdered,” Igor Kowalewski, the general secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference said.

Rev. Kowalewski said one of the priests was a Russian citizen and the other from Ecuador.

A Moscow police spokesman said an official investigation had been launched.

The priests’ bodies were found at an apartment owned by the Russian branch of the Society of Jesus, as the Jesuit order is formally known.

The apartment building is located on the same street as the city police headquarters.

The committee said the victims apparently died of head injuries a day earlier. It said the victims seem to have been eating a meal when they were attacked.

The apartment’s door was open, but there was no immediate information about any valuables missing from the apartment.