wfn.org | U.S. Episcopal priest murdered in Moscow

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2000-135

http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/ens

U.S. Episcopal priest murdered in Moscow

by Jan Nunley

     (ENS) An American Episcopal priest fulfilling a lifelong dream of working in 
Russia was found stabbed to death in his Moscow apartment August 24.

     Russian authorities said the Rev. Steve Charles Malcom, 49, had been dead 
for almost a week when his body was discovered. A spokesperson for the U.S. 
Embassy would not give a possible motive for the killing, but said that audio and 
video equipment was missing from Malcom's apartment.

     Malcom had lived in Russia for three years as an English instructor and 
tutor. He had spent the month of July teaching in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, 
some 2,600 miles east of Moscow. His brother-in-law, Rob Prillaman, indicated 
that Russia's uncertain economy had forced Malcom to take the temporary part-time 
position at Irkutsk.

     During a June visit to the family home in Cozad, Nebraska, Prillaman said 
Malcom never indicated any fear for his personal safety. When family members 
asked why he wanted to return to Moscow, Malcom answered, "Just remember, that's 
where I want to be."

     In his homily at Malcom's funeral, Nebraska Bishop James Krotz told of 
visiting a nursing home in Nebraska City with Malcom. "The people pressed on from 
every side to speak with Steve and touch him," Krotz recalled. "As we walked down 
the hall, doors would open and wheelchairs would roll and hands would reach out.

     "They pressed on from every side, the lame, the halt, the lonely, and also 
the young, the healthy, the staff. And Steve had a word, a touch for each and 
all. To walk down that hallway with Steve was to know what it must have been like 
to walk with Jesus through the crowds of his homeland. Walking down that hallway 
with Steve was one of the richest, most humbling moments of my 27 years of 
ministry."

     Malcom was born December 21, 1950, in Lexington, Nebraska, the oldest of 
four children. He graduated from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary at 
Evanston, Illinois, and was ordained in 1986. He served in several Episcopal 
parishes in Nebraska, as a curate at St. Andrew's, Omaha, from 1986 to 1988, and 
as rector of St. Mary's, Nebraska City, from 1988 to 1998. He left St. Mary's on 
an extended sabbatical to live and teach in Russia.

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of the Episcopal Church's Office of News 
and Information.