Russian Orthodox Church choses between 'ex-KGB candidates' as Patriarch

timesonline.co.uk ^ | January 26, 2009 | Tony Halpin

[Tailgunner Joe]

The Russian Orthodox Church will choose tomorrow between three alleged former KGB agents as its next spiritual leader.

More than 700 priests, monks and lay representatives will decide who should become the new Patriarch in the first Church election since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The contest at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow pits the favourite, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, against two rivals who also rose through the heirarchy at a time when the Church was under strict Communist control.

Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk, 59, is in charge of economic affairs, and Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk, 73, is head of the Church in Belarus. The winner of the contest, which could last until Thursday, will be the 16th Patriarch of a Church with 165 million believers.

The election is taking place following the death of Patriarch Aleksiy II in December. He was elected in 1990 as the Soviet regime neared collapse and oversaw a resurgence in Orthodox belief in Russia, opening thousands of new churches.

The Patriarch's reputation was tainted by allegations that he had been a long-serving KGB agent codenamed "Drozdov" (thrush), who had been awarded a "certificate of honour" for his service in 1988.

Material from the KGB archives examined by a parliamentary committee led by a dissident priest, Father Gleb Yakunin, in 1992 also revealed that most of the Church heirarchy was infiltrated by the secret police.

Kirill, 62, was alleged to be an agent codenamed Mikhailov and Filaret was identified as agent Ostrovskii. Kliment has been accused of working as a KGB agent named Topaz, although the documentary evidence is more sketchy.