Russian Agents in Mantles of the Macedonian Orthodox Church
Source: Meta.mk
Putin’s regime is using the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) for spreading influence in Orthodox countries. The ROC is exerting enormous pressure on other churches and preventing the recognition of autocephaly status the Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC). By means of intelligence actions, Russian priests are recruiting members of the clergy all over the local Balkan churches, writes Truthmeter.mk in the article that we are republishing in full.
Following the Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2022 and the introduction of sanctions by Western countries, many Russian agents were expelled from the democratic states. By introducing sanctions for Russian companies, many Russian agents–sent as trade representatives in those countries–were also expelled. Subsequently, the regime in Moscow resorted to using the services of those agents who were not expelled. For Orthodox countries, that meant agents who had infiltrated local churches. Eventually this lead to a Russian priest to be expelled from North Macedonia, an act that inspired Bulgaria to do the same.
On 15 September 2023, Vasian Zmeev, Chief of the vestry of the Russian Church in Sofia was banned entrance in North Macedonia. Media reported that the behavior of the Russian clergyman exceeded by far the limits of activities permitted by international law, and included bringing the relations with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to a standstill, hampering the process of gaining autocephaly for MOC.
In June 2023, quoting information received from NATO, President Stevo Pendarovski said for the news portal 360 Degrees that some members of the highest ruling body of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, i.e. several of the bishops or metropolitans, had been collaborating with the Russian Secret Service. In his statement, the President carefully noted an exception, emphasizing that the Head of the Church, Archbishop Stephen, is not one of the priests who collaborate with Russian intelligence.
Macedonian priests and Russian services
This was a good reason for Truthmeter to investigate the Russian influence in the country through the church. In the interview, President Pendarovski didn’t mention specific names of church metropolitans recruited to work for Russian interests. We tried to reach those bishops through our own sources.
The experienced journalist, editor and historian of church events, Zoran Bojarovski, believes that the behavior of several metropolitans is opposed to the interests of the Macedonian Orthodox Church.
There is no doubt that the KGB is using the Russian Church to spread its influence in Orthodox countries. Ample evidence is pointing to the fact that clergy officials, including Patriarch Kirill and his predecessor, have come out from the KGB’s camp. By expelling Vasian Zmeev, that connection became obvious. On one occasion, President Pendarovski stated that Vasian Zmeev was undertaking activities beyond those of the church, and since the agencies share information with the President, that most probably is true. He had meetings with some metropolitans like Petar and Ilarion, said Bojarovski.
Photo: G. Lefkov
He added that the situation in the Macedonian Orthodox Church’s Synod (ruling body) is just a reflection of the struggle between Moscow and Constantinople.
A feature of the current Synod is that, according to a source close to the church who wanted to remain anonymous, is that several metropolitans who belonged to the former Orthodox Ohrid Archbishopric (POA), which was integrated into MOC in April 2023, do not represent the Russian wing in the Synod.
The source says that it is highly unlikely that the three former POA bishops Jovan Vraniškovski, David and Marko, who form their own group in the Macedonian Orthodox Church, are pro-Russian because they nurture good relations with the Greek Church and always expressed their own positions to that effect.
“These bishops realized that the Serbs had abandoned them, so now I don’t expect them to act as a destructive force within the Synod,” our source opined.
The professor at Sofia University, Kalin Janakiev, has a similar stance. He quite well understands Orthodoxy on the Balkans and beyond.
Russia realized that it cannot be more influential through the church of Jovan Vraniskovski and is now focusing its attention to the pro-Serbian/pro-Russian bishops in the Synod of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, said Janakiev.
A bishop pointed out directly to be under Russian influence is younger bishop Grigorij. Last Summer in Kumanovo, Grigorij promoted a book with the title ”Patriarch of Constantinople first among/without equals”, in the presence of the now expelled Vasian Zmeev. Zmeev is deemed to have influenced MOC for appointing Grigorij as bishop.
According to the the church laws, bishops need to receive a document with a proposal for a certain candidate for a metropolitan. They then have 15 days to review it before voting for him. For Grigorij, according to our sources from MOC, the bishops had 15 minutes to decide.
The Tomos and the Ukrainian Church targeted by Russian influence
The Russian Church is focused on preventing the award of the Tomos to the Macedonian Orthodox Church by the Constantinople Patriarchate which would grant it independence similar to all other churches from the Orthodox world.
The Russian state and Russian Church under no circumstance want MOC to receive recognition from Constantinople. They insist that the Tomos received from the Serbian Orthodox Church is enough. That way, they believe, MOC and Constantinople will come closer together, and outside the influence of Russian Orthodox Church that is now present through the Serbian Orthodox Church, says professor Janakiev.
According to anonymous MOC sources, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew imposed three key conditions for awarding the Tomos to the Macedonian church:
- the diaspora,
- the name of the church and
- the communion with the Ukrainian Church.
Regarding the diaspora, the MOC should not have an archbishop or a bishop of Australia, but they will be of Melbourne or Sydney, while MOC will be able to appoint more bishops there and the same is true for the USA.
The name of the church was agreed to be Ohrid Archdiocese – Church of North Macedonia. The recognition of the Ecumenical Patriarchate is never by nation, but by geographical frontiers of the country. There is no such thing as Greek Church, but Church of Greece. The same is true with Albanian Church which is called Orthodox Church of Albania.
The third point referring to the Ukrainian Church, which was awarded Tomos by Constantinople, provides for MOC to be in communion with the Ukrainian Church.
Last March a three-member Synod of the MOC-OA – Archbishop Stefan, Petar and Timotej – adopted a decision according to which priests were forbidden to serve communion with the Ukrainian Church.
Professor Aleksandar Spasenovski from the Law Faculty in Skoje, claims that following the historical decision of 9 May 2022 of the Ecumenical Patriarchate for recognizing MOC’s canonical status, some strange movements were detected in our country.
Namely, some structures, whose positions were clearly anti-EU and anti-NATO in the past, started talking in one voice against obtaining autocephaly status by MOC from the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In the course of those attacks, threats were made about taking away the name, the diaspora, in other words, semi-truths were spread in order to make the people suspicious. This union was expanding in and out of the Church. These attempts were constantly synchronized and directed towards preventing complete implementation of the process of awarding the autocephaly Tomos to the church by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, said professor Spasenovski.
Most vocal against receiving the Tomos from Constantinople was metropolitan Petar through his personal friend suspicious for double murder Ljupco Palevski- Palco. Related to this declaration, Palevski presented a declaration for which he was publicly supported by the three metropolitans – Petar, Grigorij and Agatangel.
Against the award of Tomos from Constantinople also spoke the bishop from Kumanovo-Osogovo, Grigorij. He stated that in an interview by attacking the Ecumenical Patriarchate. That reached the ears of the Ecumenical Patriarch. Later, MOC’s Synod refrained from the position taken by Metropolitan Grigorij.
Tomos from Constantinople
All Orthodox churches up to now have received Tomos from Constantinople – the Russian Church, the Serbian Church, the Bulgarian Church, and the Greek Church. None of those we spoke to remembers any church receiving Tomos from another church as we did from the Serbian Church.
According to professor Spasenovski – whose PhD topic was the place and the role of religious communities in the Constitutional order of the countries, with a special view to the Republic of Macedonia – several factors pushed the recognition of the Macedonian Orthodox Church.
For some time now, there has been one somewhat forgotten rule where the Ecumenical Patriarchate has the main right of appeal in the intra-church disputes. The Ecumenical Patriarchate has had that right for centuries. It used that right to represent an appeals institution in intra-church disputes, stresses Spasenovski.
This rule simplified means: If you have a dispute with a church, as we have with SOC, you resolve the dispute with that church. However, if two churches get involved, then the dispute is referred to the Appeals Court in Constantinople.
I have not researched the relation of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church towards the process of obtaining autocephaly of MOC, but personally I think that the Bulgarian Church missed the opportunity to go much deeper into the positive documents of our church history, although subconsciously, unintentionally, it contributed to an additional boost of these processes. Namely, the positive thing about the Bulgarian Church is that it established an internal-church commission connected with the Macedonian church issue thereby giving another, most probably key argument to the Ecumenical Patriarch to use his right to appeal in the case of MOC, because apart from the SOC, the BOC got involved, says Spasenovski.
Those knowledgeable about the situation believe that if the dispute was not referred to the Appeals Court in Constantinople, the Serbian Church would not have approved autocephaly status to MOC. This can be seen from the first statement given after the enthronement of Serbian Patriarch Porfirij in Spring 2021, where he stresses that he would not deviate from the current policy towards MOC. Soon, after several months, seeing that a decision was prepared for MOC, the Serbian Patriarchy rushed in to recognize us before Constantinople.
“The Russian Church played an unfair game to the end. Ilarion Alfeev, who had the status of Foreign Affairs Minister of the Russian Church, demanded from our authorities to release Jovan Vraniskovski from prison promising that he would advocate the recognition of our autonomous church with the Serbs. The Serbs did not recognize us as an autocephaly church until the start of Constantinople’s arbitration”, says our source who insisted to remain anonymous.
Apart from international church reasons related to the decision of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to award autocephaly status to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, including the domestic developments related to overcoming the name dispute and involving the Bulgarian Orthodox Church which was used as an excuse for the Ecumenical Patriarchate to apply its historical right to an appeal in intra-church disputes, another important aspect was the ongoing strengthening of human potential of the Macedonian Orthodox Church. Those young monks were raised in the 90-ies in the Orthodox spirit, and they decided to go to Mount Athos thereby establishing strong relations and friendship ties so that upon their return to Macedonia they would be able to plant the seed of new monasticism in the country, further advancing the Church. Here I am referring to the Mount Athos monks – Naum, Partenij and Kliment. In continuity, these people have managed to present the Macedonian truth in the decision-making centre – the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Serbian Orthodox Church was motivated by these decisions by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and rushed in with awarding us the Tomos. However, the question raised was why didn’t the Serbian Orthodox Church award us the Tomos 50 years ago, and decided to do that now, immediately after the response of the Ecumenical Patriarchate that started resolving the decade-long frozen issue of the Macedonian Church. Nevertheless, this process with the Ecumenical Patriarchate makes sense only if it is carried out to the end. Namely, if we do not receive the Tomos from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, yet again we will be in a world under the strong influence of the Serbian Orthodox Church. This process must be finalized with Tomos award by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, deems Spasenovski.
Resolving the name issue helped Macedonian Orthodox Church move forward the process of obtaining autocephaly status. Having signed the Prespa Agreement, a series of letters from Macedonian top officials to the Ecumenical Patriarchate followed requesting to apply the right of an appeal and act in the case of Macedonian Orthodox Church.
Who are the expelled priests from North Macedonia and Bulgaria
The moment North Macedonia proclaimed Vasian Zmeev persona non grata, another priest was expelled from Bulgaria together with him, that being Juhen Plaviascuk.
According to professor Janakiev, Vasian Zmeev has a very dark biography. He was a member of the Rector Council of the Moscow Theological Seminary where he was involved in a sex-scandal. A letter from pupils and students of that seminary shows that a group of professors and spiritual leaders performed prohibited sexual behavior with the students. Immediately after that scandal, Vasian Zmeev was sent to Belarus. The Belarus Church is under Moscow Patriarchate and led by an Exarch, subordinate to the Russian Patriarch. It is quite strange why Zmeev was sent to Belarus knowing that the Exarch there is subordinate to the Russian Patriarch. That is happening at the moment when the Exarch of the Belarus Orthodox Church is requesting to initiate a process for autonomy of his Church. Later, the Exarch will stand behind the big protests in Belarus. Vasian Zmeev was sent there to spy on the activities of the Belarus Exarch. Having accomplished that task, he was sent to the Russian Church in Sofia.
I assume he is proceeding with his spying mission in Bulgaria and North Macedonia in order to prevent the Tomos award to the Macedonian Orthodox Church by Constantinople. You know that Macedonian Orthodox Church is divided between a pro-Russian part and a pro-Constantinople part. Most probably, he was coordinating the pro-Russian elements in the Synod of MOC, alienating it from Constantinople, says the professor at Sofia University, Janakiev.
For the professor at the Faculty of Theology in Sofia, Dilian Nikolcev the circumstances surrounding Zmeev are quite evident and clear.
There are different categories of agents. When you are an influence agent, you are an influence agent. He needs not plant explosives if he is an influence agent – he engages in meetings and sermons to implement the policy of the Russian Orthodox Church. Some agents are only for recruiting people. I think that Vasian Zmeev was an influence agent, deems Nikolcev.
The second expelled priest from Bulgaria, Plavlaiscuk, as a young spiritual leaders was involved in recruiting young boys who needed to be trained for participation in military conflicts and reared in the church doctrine. The purpose was to establish youth paramilitary formations under the auspices of the Church. He was doing that until he was sent to Bulgaria where he was assumed to be responsible for the so-called “Kazak organization” that is trying to operate as a Russian paramilitary formation in Bulgaria.
Examples of paramilitary formations in Russia are the Wagner Group of late Yevegeny Prigozhin, as well as the private military formation of Gazprom and several others.
Russian church agents in Bulgaria
To understand Russian agents in mantles, we carried on our research to Sofia where the church influence is best reflected. Before the collapse of the Communist regime in the Eastern bloc, the Bulgarian Church was fully subordinated to KGB. There is a Russian temple in the centre of Sofia where Vasian Zmeev himself served.
According to professor Janakiev, Russian patriarchs have been sending priests with the blessing of the Russian secret services for years.
The priests appointed to the Russian Church in Sofia – every single one of them – are agents of the Russian services, says Janakiev.
In addition to the Russian agents in Sofia, the Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has been “under Russian boots” for years, he adds.
During Communism, in our case, a rigid personal policy was enforced. There was a seminary that produced 25 people per annum. Only a few of them would become priests. Some of us were children of persecuted parents and we had no means of accomplishing high-school education. They did everything to have the lower quality people remain in the church. In the period when I was studying there, from 8 generations only 4-5 people became monks, says bishop Tihon, who originates from the Delcevo village Star Istevnik.
He explained how Russian services pressed the bishops of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church:
Everyone putting on a monk’s hat is immediately seized by the services and sent to Russia. I am the only bishop of the Synod of BOC who has not been to Russia, nor the US. Once in Russia, he is left alone to see how he would behave. Then he sits on a table to see how much he can drink. Then he is surrounded by a “cloud” of girls to see whether he will hold back or not. Many candidates did not make it. All that is noted somewhere and then these people are blackmailed.
Russian influence in Bulgaria is very big. According to research of the Bulgarian unit of Radio Free Europe, the Russian Federation in Bulgaria owns more property than USA, Germany, France and China together.
The professor of the Faculty of Theology in Sofia, Nikolcev, who has been studying the archives of the Bulgarian church-related secret services, says that during Communism, 95 percent of the metropolitans in BOC were agents.
KGB had a plan to destroy the Constantinople Patriarchate
Russian secret services in the past had secret plans to plant explosives in very significant religious buildings, according to the research made by professor Nikolcev. One of those plans, allegedly, was drafted in the 50-ies and 60-ies in Bulgaria with the intention to blow up Constantinople Patriarchate.
Professor Nikolcev dedicated a great deal of effort to these plans.
I have several publications about the attempts of the “Prvo Glavno Upravlenie (PGU) (First Main Administration) of State Security” from the end of the 50-ies and the beginning of the 60-ies, to set on fire or explode Constantinople Patriarchate. One of our professors participated in that operation, but most probably he did not know. He was a logistics agent. He was sent with the Ecumenical Patriarch to meet several professors of the Academy of Theology. He was tasked to see where the chapel was located, how many people came to liturgy on holidays and that was the information he was supplying. He did not know what that information was used for. He did not know that PGU was developing a plan to blow up Constantinople Patriarchate, says Nikolcev.
He ads that such an operation was developed in order to antagonize NATO’s South Wing, with Greece, Turkey, and the US because it was important for KGB Turkey and Greece to have tense relations.
In our PGU, this operation had the code name “Cross”. But they seem to have been illiterate to write it as “Cros” in half of the documents. They have been developing the plan for seven or eight years. There are also documents for burning down the birth house of Ataturk in Thessaloniki. This a very large dossier and in one of the files, a document in Russian language appears to have been sent to KGB mentioning the plan for setting fire to the largest mosque Al Aksa in Jerusalem. That is the case when they are trying to incite a war between the Jews and the Arabs on the Middle East. I think that KGB developed that plan, added Nikolcev.
First officer, then priest
In Communism times, diplomats from the Eastern bloc were, almost always, intelligence. Although Communists did not like the church, in 1943 Stalin reckoned that the church could help his fight against the Nazis and thus the church became mainstream.
According to the documents found by professor Nikolcev once the archives of Bulgarian State Security were opened, if the metropolitans was recruited by Russia, a letter was sent to the Bulgarian authorities to leave that person alone.
They do not say why, but one can tell that the person was recruited. In rare cases, double files were maintained in both the Bulgarian secret service and in the KGB, he says.
Nikolcev added that metropolitan Simeon from the Western European Diocese of BOC was recruited by both services.
He is the only state officer under another name and a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party. For many years before that he was a vicar bishop. His dossier consists of 28 chapters and each chapter has 200-300 pages. All members of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church had officer ranks. In Bulgaria, apart from Simeon as an officer, the other bishops were collaborators of the services, says Nikolcev.
Andrej Zaharov, investigative journalist from the Russian service of the BBC who fled to Western Europe believed that these agents were especially dangerous for the security of any country in the long run. State Security was then known as NKBD (KGB) and used people from the Russian Church who traveled to other churches as agents.
This is not proven since the archives in Russia are still not open. But, in principle, it is quite clear when you see the CV of the current Patriarch Kirill who lived in Geneva for a very long time, where the World Church Union is located. Now, this position is performed by his nephew, added Zaharov.
“Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society” versus North Macedonia
Less familiar is the fact that even before Vasian Zmeev, Russian agents in North Macedonia were undertaking hostile faith-related activities, but through Greece. Russia through church donations tried to impose its influence and domination.
There is “Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society” (IPPD) established by Nicholas I and Alexandar II even before the October Revolution. The society was formed to restore Orthodox monuments in Palestine. After the collapse of Communism or during Putin’s time, this society was renewed. It was implementing big Christian projects, not just in Palestine, but also in Greece – I know of a big project on the island of Corfu, Thessaloniki, and Mount Athos. President of the society was the former Prime-minister of the Russian Federation, Sergey Stepashin. He is from Sankt Petersburg and is Putin’s good friend, says Zaharov, who investigated this society in 2018.
Member of the IPPD is Nikolay Tokarev, Putin’s close friend from the time when they were KGB officers in Dresden, Eastern Germany. Tokarev is the President of Transneft.
The Committee of Honorary Members of the Society is led by Patriarch Kirill. It includes Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, Head of the Foundation of Education Society “Elizabeth – Sergius”, Ana Gromova, spouse of Deputy Head of Presidential Administration, Alexey Gromov, the former mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov and the current mayor, Sergey Sobyanin.
Part of this Greek Society are also owners of a construction company well known to us – “Aktor”, covered by the media for laundering millions of Euros.
In July 2018, the former Russian Consul in Thessaloniki, Alexey Popov together with another staff member of the Russian Embassy, Viktor Jakovlev, were expelled from Greece. They were part of IPPD. According to Greek media, Greek authorities considered them to be involved in the internal affairs of the country, more specifically, they were trying to interfere with the agreement on the new name of neighboring Macedonia.
In the past there also was a group of politicians and businessmen from Russia who called themselves “Afonites” (Afon is the Russian name for Mount Athos). They very often came to Greece and gave a great deal of money to Russian and Greek monasteries on Mount Athos, but also in other places. Quite often the Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeev who attempted coup d’etat in Montenegro in 2016 came there.
Russian tycoons were providing a great deal of funds for the churches on the Balkans. More than 200 million Euros were transferred by the Russians to Orthodox buildings on the Balkans.
Dirty game of the Russian Church in Orthodoxy
The Russian Orthodox Church is not in eucharistic communion with Constantinople. That means that currently the Russian Church is not communicating with the Constantinople Patriarchate.
Russian Orthodox Church, under the pressure of the Russian state, is trying to interrupt the relations of the rest of the Orthodox churches with Constantinople. That effort is enormous, but the success in various territories is not that great. Alexandria Church recognized the Ukrainian Church. As revenge, the Russian Orthodox Church started to open uncanonically dioceses on the territory of Africa under the Alexandrian Church, says professor Janakiev.
He added that the Tomos received by a church always includes the territory of that church. In the territory of the Moscow Patriarchate, the territories of Alexandrian Patriarchate cannot be included. The Greek Orthodox Church recognized the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Russian Orthodox Church is trying in every possible way to create a conflict among the metropolitans of the Greek Orthodox Church, but without any big success up to date.
For bishop Tihon, much more irritating is the behavior of Russian diplomats and ambassadors in Orthodox countries.
The way an ambassador in the Synod demonstrates force, in terms of “I’ll now go there to see what they’ll do” is impertinence. Every Russian ambassador is first resident of KGB. That is the case all over the world. He knows his agents in the Synod, and will never say who those agents are, but from their actions, you will be able to tell, says bishop Tihon.
Author: Goran Lefkov
The original article: belongs to Meta.mk .
