A Focus OF THE SOVIET ATTACK-"Highly Valued by the KGB"

Even after World War II ended in 1945, the Orthodox Church remained useful to the Communists.  The Soviet Union:  The Fifty Years, edited by Harrison Salisbury, revealed how this was so:  "With the war's end, church leaders fell in with the Cold War demands of Stalin's foreign policy." 

 The recent book The Sword and the Shield describes how church leaders served the Soviet interests.  It explains that Patriarch Alexis I, who had succeeded Sergius as patriarch in 1945, "joined the World Peach Council, the Soviet front organization founded in 1949." The book also notes that he and Metropolitan Nikolai "were highly valued by the KGB [the Soviet Security Committee] as agents of influence." 

Remarkably, in 1955, Patriarch Alexis declared:  "The Russian Orthodox Church supports the totally peaceful foreign policy of our government, not because the Church allegedly lacks freedom, but because Soviet policy is just and corresponds to the Christian ideals which the Church preaches."

In the January 22, 2000, issue of The Guardian of London, England, dissident Orthodox priest Edelshtein is quoted as saying: "All the bishops were carefully picked so that they would work with the Soviet government. All were KGB agents. It is well known that Patriarch Alexy was recruited by the KGB, under the code name Drozdov. Today, they are preserving the same politics that they had  20 0r 30 years ago." 

Next time: A Focus OF THE SOVIET ATTACK - A Handmaiden of the Soviet State

From the jw.org publications