News

Sonntags Zeitung: In the 1970s, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill spied in Switzerland

Author:
Anhelina Sheremet
Date:

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill worked in Geneva for the Soviet KGB foreign intelligence service.

This is reported by the Swiss newspaper Sonntags Zeitung.

From 1971 to 1974, the young Russian priest Volodymyr Gundyaev lived in Geneva as a representative at the World Council of Churches. The newspaper Sonntags Zeitung was able to get acquainted with the documents of the federal police at the time. According to them, Kirill was then a young priest in the Russian KGB secret service. Under the pseudonym "Mikhailov" he was supposed to gather information about other members of the World Council of Churches in Geneva and influence its position: against the USA and NATO, and positively towards the Soviet Union.