General

There is a common myth that in Soviet times the episcopate of the Russian Orthodox Church was staffed by KGB agents. It is completely untrue and indeed this disinformation myth was put about, ‘spread abroad’, by the CIA and its subsidiaries in Western Europe, like MI5, MI6, the BND and the DGSE. The truth is that the KGB invented and used code names (‘klichki’) for all sorts of personalities it had to deal with, such as President Reagan, Mrs Thatcher and, at the other end of the scale, senior Russian Orthodox bishops. Only if President Reagan and Mrs Thatcher were KGB agents, does it mean that the referenced Russian Orthodox bishops were also KGB agents!

The only case I know of a Moscow priest even being even contacted by the KGB was Fr Georg (Wagner), though that was in Berlin in about 1961 – in the hottest spot of the hottest moment of the very uncold Cold War. (And for the record, Fr Georg refused and left the Moscow Patriarchate – to his credit. Moreover, his action was approved of by the senior Moscow bishop of the time, Metr Nikolai (Yarushevich), who rightly said that ‘Fr Georg had been given no alternative but to leave’.)

In reality, the Russian Church has suffered far, far more from the CIA and from its above subsidiaries and its assets, who not only had code-names, but were actual agents. A large number of Russian emigres from the ROCOR church in London (Golitsyn) and many from the Rue Daru church in Paris (Constantin Melnik) worked for their respective Western spy services, let alone those from ROCOR churches in Washington and Ottawa). The bishops included the late Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) and a number of other well-known ROCOR bishops and senior clergy and many laymen, some still alive, some not.

Personal

Neither the KGB, nor its successor, the FSB, ever approached me. They are not so stupid. I know enough about this from taking the confessions of repentant former KGB agents, in Lisbon and Moscow. The KGB wanted only those convinced of Communism, for which, if you were a Non-Russian, you had either to be naïve or else stupid to believe in. As for the successor to the KGB, the FSB, it recruits Russian nationalists, which Non-Russians simply cannot be of they are in the slightest normal and loyal patriots of their native land.

My contact with MI5 came only once, in 1977. Word got round at University that MI5 were about to search the rooms of all those about to graduate from the Russian Faculty, as they did every year. Nothing special. I was intrigued, so decided to test them in two ways. Firstly, on leaving my room in the morning, I positioned a hair over the lock of the door. Secondly, I left a book on the Soviet Union positioned at a precise angle to the edge of the desk. When I came back to my room one afternoon, the hair had gone and the book had been moved, not by much, but by enough for me to realise they had been in. From that moment on I was convinced that they were indeed stupid, since a mere student could outwit them. Not that I was interested in them anyway.

As for MI6, it tried to recruit me quite openly twice, once in 2016, when I was on my way to Antwerp as the Russian Orthodox Missionary Representative for Western Europe, appointed by Metr Hilarion (Kapral). The second time was as recently as October 2021. That too was an offer from a ‘customs officer’ (that is what they also dress up as), when I was returning from the Ukraine. I thought that MI6 was stupid, but at least honest. I think it is the same old story. British secret agents are very badly-paid and, as they say, if you pay peanuts, you only get monkeys to work for you.  And they are now desperately short of Russian speakers. In any case MI5 and MI6 both farm out the dirty work to the SIS. They do not kill themselves.

The CIA

The CIA is very different. It has an enormous budget and it pays very well. However, the CIA can only recruit thugs to work for it, because it is so ruthless. After flattery and then bribery, next they always turn to intimidation. It really is a bunch of gangsters, as it does its own killing, as I know from some who have been threatened by it.

The latest attempt was in 2021 when a CIA agent, sent here from the US, tried to recruit me. However, we defeated the double-crosser by moving sideways. Our whole Deanery went to the Romanians. This was 8 days before Russia took on Kiev, so when Colchester police offered to station a couple of policemen outside the Church in March 2022 in case of possible bomb attacks (and after I also received all sorts of hate-mail), I turned them down and deflated the hate-mailers, by telling them the truth and explaining that we are not part of the Russian Church, but of the Romanian (which is the same, except that it has no CIA plants among its clergy). So the truth was a win-win for all of us. The truth does indeed set you free.

To help me, I had had a premonitory dream about my contact with the CIA, five years earlier. In 2016 I had a dream, or rather nightmare, about a CIA agent dressed as a churchman. In my dream he rang my doorbell. I opened it, dressed in my cassock and cross. As I opened the door, I saw a churchman, dressed in a black cassock, on my doorstep holding a revolver. Before I could react in astonishment, he had fired at me and the bullet had hit my cross and rebounded on him, killing him instantly. That is exactly what, metaphorically, later happened. As they say, forewarned is forearmed. The dream turned out to be both a warning and a consolation.