It was to a resounding silence that the news broke last December that today's Russian Church's organization was essentially formed under the watchful eye of the NKGB, a precursor to the KGB.
The 1945 Local Council that elected Patriarch Alexy I (Simansky) and adopted the church's current name was organized and conducted by the Soviet political police, documents recently declassified by the Ukrainian Security Service show.
The papers made public by the Ukrainian security agency showed that the crucial meetings of the Russian Orthodox Church and the patriarch selection process were police controlled. But the reaction on Russian social media was along the lines of "What's the big deal?" and "Haven't we heard about this before?"
KGB colonel Georgy Karpov, whose signature is on the letter instructing local KGB chiefs on how to select the delegates, was decorated with the Order of the Red Banner of Labor for organizing the 1945 council. He was known for extreme cruelty during the Great Purge. He is also part of the church's history: for seventeen years he headed the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church—which is to say he de facto governed the church in a way similar to that of the Ober-Procurator of the Most Holy Synod.
https://www.newsweek.com/why-do-russians-trust-church-set-kgb-802635