The Kremlin Church Abroad: Historical Intelligence Operations to YouTube Propagandist
- Subdeacon Nektarios, M.A.
- 2 minutes ago
- 8 min read
By Subdeacon Nektarios, M.A.
In a recent post on his official X (Twitter) account, U.S. Congressman Joseph Wilson responded to an article published by the political magazine The Hill, entitled “White House to meet clergy with ties to pro-war Russian Orthodox Church” by Laura Kelly. Congressman Wilson wrote that the Russian Orthodox Church is, by extension, an apparatchik of the Russian state, and that within the United States the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, which is subservient to the Moscow Patriarchate, is or has been used by the intelligence services of the Russian Federation to recruit and spy on American soil. Congressman Wilson wrote on his account that,
The Russian Orthodox Church is not a separate religious organization but an extension of the Russian state. Evangelizing is illegal in Russia and Christians are targeted and killed in Ukraine. Members should not entertain this intelligence operation [1].
In a subsequent post, he clarified that he was specifically referring to the ROCOR-MP, which has been subservient to the Soviet-created Moscow Patriarchate since its false union in 2007, when many of its clergy and bishops abandoned their eighty-year-long witness against that Soviet-created institution. In this follow up post he wrote,
My comments pertain ONLY to the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) operating under the umbrella of the Moscow Patriarchate. Patriarch Kirill has advocated for mass murder and persecution of Christians and served decades as KGB. Most Orthodox churches are NOT affiliated with Moscow [2].
Congressman Wilson does not know the ins and outs of the Orthodox Church or its jurisdictional politics, but he is certainly not wrong when he states that the ROCOR-MP has been and continues to be used by the Russian Federation and its intelligence agencies as a recruiting and intelligence gathering apparatus. In fact, this is nothing new in the history of the Moscow Patriarchate and, for those familiar with the history of the Russian Church, it is entirely par for the course.
In our recently published volume, In Their Own Words: The Private Letters of Saint Philaret of New York and Bishop Gregory Grabbe, Saint Philaret explicitly discusses the manner in which the KGB in his time used the Moscow Patriarchate for its intelligence activities. Writing to Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), the secretary of the Synod, Saint Philaret states:
I have already responded to your subsequent letters and added another letter yesterday. Regarding Chernov, I have already heard about him. Someone told me that he corresponded with Vladyka Laurus and hopes to meet him there. Not having seen him myself, I naturally cannot form any impression, but I think some attention should be given to Mother Magdalina’s intuition. She is not prone to frivolous biases. I believe such people should be closely observed and, if possible, not be entrusted with anything significant to avoid making them potential targets for pressure from the KGB. As for agents, they have easily deceived and gained the trust of people more experienced in such matters than you and I [3].
Of course, this has led many of the micro famous ROCOR-MP YouTubers, who, ignorant as they are, know nothing about the history of their own Patriarch or Patriarchate, to claim mindlessly that they are being persecuted and that the article in The Hill and the statements by Congressman Wilson were untrue. However, this is most certainly not untrue.
The Moscow Patriarchate has a long history, both before and after the Soviet Union, of using the Church for political aims. In one declassified document from the Central Intelligence Agency, we read how during Soviet times the regime could not politically risk keeping churches closed in perpetuity “and therefore set up a puppet church with a puppet patriarch” [4]. The question is why anyone would think that things have changed simply because the Soviet Union, in its formal state structure, has fallen.
As a more recent example, we have information from a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow Patriarchate, in which the parish priest received an award for his intelligence cooperation with Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (Служба внешней разведки Российской Федерации). The award was delivered by representatives of that agency and, of course, by Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk of the Department for External Church Relations, the plenipotentiary representative of the Patriarchate. The World Russian People’s Council is a state-aligned public forum created in 1993 that brings together government officials, cultural figures, and religious leaders to promote the ideology of the Russian world (Russky Mir) and broader national civilizational goals. It operates under the direct chairmanship of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, which makes it effectively guided by the Moscow Patriarchate despite its nominal status as a public organization.
This organization posted photos of the award and a description on its website (PDF attached below) before the material was taken down. Fortunately, I was able to recover the original post during my research on the topic. The posts from the World Russian People’s Council show Metropolitan Anthony of the Moscow Patriarchate’s DECR awarding Father Makarenko Pavel Georgievich the distinction in the Swedish MP parish, a place that has become controversial and secretive according to the Swedish government [5]. The text of the photographed award on the World Russian People’s Council website, given by Metropolitan Anthony, states the following:
Awarded with the medal “For Cooperation”
Order of the SVR of Russia
Dated November 4, 2023
No. 4023-ПН
[Fr] Makarenko Pavel Georgievich
Director of the SVR of Russia
(signature)
S. Naryshkin [6].
The Medal “For Cooperation,” according to the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, is a departmental medal of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation (SVR). It was established by an SVR order in November 2004. According to its Statute, the Medal “For Cooperation” is awarded to individuals who have provided significant assistance to the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation in carrying out the tasks assigned to it [7].
In another document from the Central Intelligence Agency, in a report entitled Soviet Exploitation of Religious Leaders and Organizations for Propaganda and Intelligence Purposes, we read that not only was Archbishop Kirill identified as a known KGB asset by the French government, which even denied him entry into the country, but that the World Council of Churches was also used as an intelligence apparatus. The Moscow Patriarchate remains a member of that body to this day. In this primary source historical report we read:
The Soviet Government uses church facilities as intelligence-gathering stations mainly in closed-access areas such as Israel. The payoff has always been of marginal significance, however, and the risk of compromising the ostensible independence of the Russian Orthodox Church is an important consideration [redacted] church-based intelligence gathering has been scaled back in recent years. This is probably the result of negative cost-benefit evaluations and concern that the potential harm to the ostensible independence of the Russian Orthodox Church is not merited; this is especially significant because exploitation of the church for propaganda dissemination appears to be steadily increasing. Were the church to be exposed as a cover mechanism for intelligence activities, the damage to overall Soviet foreign policy interests would be commensurately significant.
Moreover, the number of countries that remain denied-access areas to Soviet nationals has diminished sharply in the 1970s and 1980s. Many nations unwilling to accord full diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Government nonetheless have opened their borders to such para diplomatic Soviet officials as trade representatives and journalists, thereby reducing the KGB’s need for church cover. Emigre and other lobby groups in the West have occasionally raised security as an issue in their efforts to leverage pressure against Soviet religious delegations. For example, the French Government has repeatedly denied the entry visa applications of Archbishop Kirill (Vladimir Mikhaylovich Gundyayev)—currently of Smolensk, formerly of the Leningrad suburb of Vyborg—for security reasons, and has indicated to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs that it will refuse all further applications of the Archbishop on the same grounds. The French Government may have irrefutable evidence that Kirill has engaged in espionage, but it is possible that his visa denials are the result of domestic pressure exerted by the relatively sizable and influential Russian emigre community in France. The French branch of the Russian Orthodox Church predates the Russian Revolution and is not subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate” [8].
These are not merely historical examples but present-day realities, clearly demonstrated by the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation awarding a medal for intelligence cooperation to a priest of the Moscow Patriarchate living in Sweden. This award was publicly celebrated by an official organization of the Moscow Patriarchate and was given by none other than Metropolitan Anthony of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Church Relations. The ceremony was not private or symbolic. It was a public display of cooperation between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian state’s intelligence apparatus.
