MODENA. “May God, the Lord, rest his soul where the righteous rest.” This is the phrase reproduced in more languages than the family Sviridenko he chose or to accompany the photo of his daughter Anna, in the memory left to people on the day of his funeral, which took place at Funeral Home Terracielo in Modena.
Anna Sviridenkoa 40-year-old woman, mother of two children aged 3 and 5 and a medical resident at Unimore, was murdered on 10 June by her husband Andrea Paltrinierinow detained at the Sant’Anna prison, after the man turned himself in on the same night as the femicide at the Carabinieri headquarters in via Pico della Mirandola in Modena with the woman’s lifeless body placed inside his van .
The funeral rite
The ceremony, with calm and intimate tones, characterized by the light of the many candles distributed to all participants and also placed between the crossed fingers of the body, was celebrated according to the Orthodox rite by Father Giorgio Arletti, rector of the Orthodox church of Modena. Anna Sviridenko’s parents, who arrived from Belarus, were present at the religious function and visibly destroyed by pain, together with the victim’s closest friends and family.
The words of Father Arletti
«You don’t come to Italy to die – he thundered Father Arletti at the beginning of the homily – there are two million Orthodox Christians who have come to Italy to work and Anna was one of them. It’s the first time I’ve been asked to celebrate the funeral of a woman killed by her husband: I’ve been thinking about what I could have said for days, but every word seems banal and inadequate in the face of such a tragedy.”
«I am obviously in great difficulty. What happened to Anna was an atrocious murder, she underlined it leaves two young children practically orphans and destroys the thoughts of ordinary people».
But Father Arletti did not spare harsh words towards the murderer Paltrinieri, who confessed to the murder: «We were born to build, not to destroy», but he wanted to instill hope and courage in Anna’s parents, remembering that now, «as has already been established, they will have the task of raising the two children with the same great love that they feel for their daughter and that the daughter felt for her two beloved little ones.”
Emotion and pain
A rather difficult passage of the ceremony but also very touching, which visibly affected those present. Father Arletti then, recalling God’s teaching, also recalled the feeling of pity that should be extended to the murderer. «Of course it is very difficult, it is stronger than us not to be able to have pity on him – concluded the rector of the Orthodox church – but in the end we have to do it: at the end of the monstrous tunnel there is a small light that shines.” However, some members of Paltrinieri’s family were also present at the funeral service, very saddened by what had happened. In the next few days the Sviridenko family will finally decide on Anna’s burial place, which will most likely be in Innsbruck.
The victim’s parents
Anna Sviridenko’s family has chosen criminal lawyer Roberta Sofia as civil party representative in the trial against the brutal murder of their daughter. «The parents are devastated by grief – said the lawyer at the end of the ceremony – However, what they want us to know is that they will now concentrate all their efforts on making the two children grow as best as possible. Several times in recent days during the conversations we have had they have repeated to me that they will give these children all the love that Anna would have been capable of giving, also offering them all the love they had towards her daughter. The children already have a good relationship with their grandparents as they also shuttled between Modena and Innsbruck to help Anna. At this moment – concludes the lawyer – I don’t feel capable of adding anything else. The pain for what happened is truly infinite.”
The lawyer participated in the funeral ceremony together with her colleague lawyer Alessandro Roncaglia, present at the ceremony on behalf of the civil lawyer Francesca Obici (absent due to family problems), with whom she shares the firm. Lawyer Obici had followed Sviridenko for the procedures for exclusive custody of the young doctor, which she had also just obtained, precisely in the days in which she was killed by her ex-husband Andrea Paltrinieri.
