Lithuania: KGB´s files reveal link with the Russian Church

(Kirill, Patriarch of the Russian Church, Putin and Medvedev.)

          On the 20th December, Lithuania has released some former KBS´s files (country was under Soviet rule from 1944 to 1991) which shows the institution´s link with the Moscow Patriarchate. Nowadays, there are some hierarchical members of the Russian Orthodox Church who have been (or are) involved with the Russian secret service, now called FSB, among them Metropolitan Alexandr of Riga, leader of the Latvian Orthodox Church linked to Moscow.

          Paul Goble says that in the Putin era the penetration of the secret service penetration into the Russian Church has increased aiming, he comments, of using ecclesial property to cover up it´s business. The church is also one of the ideological basis of the government, which stands as defender of traditional values and Christianity, seeking trying to expand it´s influence outside Russia.

        It must to be considered that the release of the files has come precisely in time of tension among Moscow, Kyiv and Constantinople around the formation of a new Ukrainian Orthodox Church, hitting the Russian Church´s imagem and thus helping in it´s demoralization among the Orthodox faithful. Given Lithuania´s history of opposition to Russia, the files´ opening at this time doesn´t seem a coincidence.