Putin’s buddy in the church: Kirill apparently worked for the KGB in Switzerland

Putin’s chum at church
Kirill apparently worked for the KGB in Switzerland

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill is a vehement supporter of Kremlin chief Putin. In 2012 he called him a “miracle” and he supports the war in Ukraine without ifs or buts. At one point he and Putin were like colleagues at a seedy institution.

According to Swiss media reports, the Russian Orthodox patriarch Kirill worked in Geneva for the former Soviet foreign secret service KGB. The activity was discovered during a stay in Switzerland in the 1970s, the newspapers “Le Matin Dimanche” and “Sonntagszeitung” reported, citing the Swiss Federal Archives. According to this, the file on Kirill, which was created by the federal police at the time and has since been released, confirms that he “belonged to the KGB”.

In the early 1970s, today’s patriarch lived in Geneva under the alias “Mikhailov”. There he was to officially represent the Moscow Patriarchate at the World Council of Churches (WCC). Kirill’s job is said to have included influencing the council infiltrated by the KGB. According to media reports, the aim of the Soviet leadership at the time was to persuade the Geneva institution to denounce the USA and its allies and to moderate its criticism of the lack of religious freedom in the USSR.

According to the two newspapers, the Russian Orthodox Church has so far rejected any comment on Kirill’s alleged espionage activities in Geneva. For its part, the WCC said it had “no information” on the matter.

Nephew: Kirill was “never an agent”

Kirill’s nephew and successor in office in Geneva, Mikhail Gundyaev, denied that his uncle was an agent to “Le Matin Dimanche”. Despite the KGB’s “tight control”, Kirill “never was an agent”. The “sincerity of his commitment to ecumenical work with other churches” was “not affected” by the pressure from the Soviet secret service, Gunyaev told the newspaper.

The Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill is a vehement supporter of the Russian head of state Vladimir Putin and his policies. He supports the Russian military operation in Ukraine, and in 2012 he described Putin, who also once worked for the KGB, as a “miracle”.

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