Kirill, the patriarch of Moscow, spied on Switzerland for the Soviet Union in the 1970s, according to declassified archives quoted by Die SonntagsZeitung.
Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, is a staunch supporter of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Russia's war against Ukraine.
Kirill, whose code name was “Mikhailov,” was a spy while living in Geneva as the official representative of the Moscow Patriarchate at the World Council of Churches (WCC), infiltrated by the KGB in the 1970s and 1980s.
He was sanctioned by the U.K. in June for backing the war. However, he has evaded EU sanctions due to Hungary’s protests.
In June, Kirill said that Russian troops fighting against Ukraine were “protecting Russia…guided by an inner moral feeling based on the Orthodox faith.” Kirill told his followers in September that Russians fighting in Ukraine were doing a “heroic deed” by fighting in Ukraine and “blessed” the war effort.
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