1/ The Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger has published a long exposé on the Russian Orthodox Church's Patriarch Kirill and his links with Switzerland and the KGB. The patriarch is a strong supporter of President Putin – ex-KGB himself – and of Russia's war in Ukraine. ⬇️ 
2/ Kirill's links to the KGB have been publicly known since the 1990s, when its files were briefly accessible to historians following the August 1991 Soviet coup. He reportedly worked for the KGB as its agent MIKHAILOV during the 1970s and 1980s.
3/ The Spectator reported in 2022 that Kirill acted for the KGB while serving as the Russian Orthodox Church's representative to the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva in the 1970s (see below).
spectator.co.uk/article/kirill…
spectator.co.uk/article/kirill…
4/ The Tages-Anzeiger (TA) has now provided more details of his time there. It's behind a registration/paywall, so I'll provide a summary translation below.
5/ TA reports that Kirill moved to Geneva in 1971, living in a house on the Rue De-Beaumont. He quickly gained the trust of Russian exiles, standing out for his intellectual brilliance, ambition and self-confidence.
6/ Vadim Melnikov, a KGB officer then in Geneva, described Kirill (in the centre in the photo below): "How handsome he was in his youth! Unfortunately not married. But the women loved him. He was tall, young and always in a good mood. People were attracted to him."
7/ Kirill enjoyed the high life, despite his priestly status. Melnikov calls him a fun-loving person who enjoyed partying with cognac and champagne late into the night, liked mountain excursions and drove a flashy white BMW sedan, which he accidentally crashed in 1974.
8/ The accident led to him leaving Switzerland as he had drawn too much attention to himself. The Swiss federal police's file on 'Monsignor Kirill' listed him as one of a number of Soviet officials "against whom measures were taken" (the measures are not specified).
9/ Kirill's work as a KGB agent involved spying on the Russian exile community and trying to influence the WCC, so that it would refrain from criticising Soviet religious repression and focus instead on the US and its allies. Some exiles were suspicious of him.
10/ One exile recalls: "We were told: Beware of these priests, because they are KGB agents. In conversations with Kirill, I always had the feeling that he was looking for information. He was very friendly but asked many questions about the exile community and the clergy."
11/ Having returned to the USSR in 1975, Kirill quickly rose in the ROC (doubtless with KGB assistance). He travelled to Switzerland regularly as a member of the Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches and also to pursue his passion for skiing.
12/ He established a relationship in the 1980s with the wealthy industrialist Piero Savoretti and his sons, in whose property he stayed when visiting for winter sports. One of the Savoretti sons worked for Kirill; the other fled Moscow after allegedly embezzling €20 million.
13/ Kirill is rumoured to have property in Switzerland. TA reports that Kirill's nephew lives in a villa owned by the ROC in Chêne-Bougeries just outside the city of Geneva. The ROC church next door was vandalised in October 2022 in apparent protest against the war.
14/ Kirill also has other Swiss connections, including a love of luxury Swiss goods. In a 2009, he was photographed wearing a $30,000 Breguet watch, causing a scandal. It was Photoshopped out, but the photo editor forgot to remove its reflection in a polished table top.
15/ He has continued to travel to Switzerland, preaching in 2016 at the Orthodox Church of the Resurrection in Zurich, where he gave a sermon dedicated to martyrdom, this "magnificent idea which is so topical in our day" (it's certainly a big theme for the ROC now).
16/ Two years later, Kirill told the Russian Federation Council after another visit to Switzerland that the Swiss had the right ideas about generating a positive "psychological atmosphere" about wealth. Swiss people, he said, did not show off their riches.
17/ In contrast, every rich man in Russia shows off his expensive car "and thus triggers feelings of envy among the neighbors". Kirill advised Russian parliamentarians to better hide their wealth the Swiss way. Last month they voted to conceal their incomes.
18/ For three previous threads on the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the conflict in Ukraine, see below. /end
https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1551643526169083905
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