Czech intelligence claims that the ROC in the country is covering Russian agents

The Czech Security Service claims that under the auspices of the Russian Orthodox Church, Russian agents are meeting in the country. One of these “secret meetings,” according to Czech intelligence officials, took place in Karlovy Vary on the basis of a local parish of the Russian Orthodox Church. This was reported by the Euraktiv publication.

It is reported that the former rector of the Karlovy Vary parish, Archpriest Nikolai Lishchenyuk, was expelled from the country last year due to “national security problems”. Local officials described him as “a loyal emissary of the Kremlin who used his religious position to spread propaganda against Ukraine and the West.” The BIS believes that the Karlovy Vary parish functioned as a backyard, a de facto embassy of the Moscow Patriarchate, headed by Patriarch Kirill. Shortly after the expulsion of the former rector from the Czech Republic, the Russian Orthodox Church quickly took steps to protect its property in the Czech Republic from national sanctions. The ownership of the Church of the Apostles Peter and Paul and other Russian Orthodox Church real estate in Karlovy Vary was re-registered. The Czech Financial and Analytical Office tried to intervene, but was unable to stop the deal.

“This is not a church in the traditional sense — it is part of the Kremlin machine. Their efforts are not aimed at spiritual work, but at serving the state interests of Russia,” — Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky told the Czech News Agency.

Earlier, the lobbyist for the OCU, the head of the Department of Religious Studies of the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences, Alexander Sagan, called the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia “a project of the Soviet special services.” Sagan argues that the autocephaly of the OCCLS cannot be taken seriously, as it was granted during Czechoslovakia’s time under Soviet influence.