Paul Goble
Staunton, June 22 – The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate has been suffering defeat after defeat abroad in recent years because of its slavish support of Kremlin aggression and its attacks on other Orthodox churches, most prominently the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
But now it has suffered one that not only hits key members of the Russian political elite but ordinary Russian Orthodox believers because the monastic republic at Holy Mount Athos in northern Greece has introduced strict limitations on pilgrims from the Russian Federation (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2025/06/22/afon-pokidaet-zonu-svo).
Visiting that monastery complex has been important for ordinary Russians and for members of the Russian political elite – Putin has visited twice (in 2005 and 2016) and senior members of his team have visited so often that they have formed what many call an Athos Club in Moscow (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2022/08/01/na-vere-shapka-gorit).
The governing body of Mount Athos, the Greek Orthodox Church, and many others have been alarmed by the ways in which Moscow has used the Russian monastery there to funnel money to various Kremlin projects abroad. Now, that body has imposed strict quotas on the numbers of Russians who can visit and the amount of money they can bring in with them.
That will hurt the Kremlin in two ways: It will anger ordinary Russian believers who since the collapse of communism have hoped to visit this holy shrine and now are unlikely to be able to. And it will limit but of course not end Moscow’s ability to use the ROC MP abroad as a front for its various intelligence and subversive projects.
As such, this move by Holy Mount Athos may prove to have a greater impact on the Kremlin than even the much more widely attended to declarations of autocephaly because as Novaya Gazeta pointed out in reporting this move, these restrictions “significantly complicate the work of Moscow agencies in this holy place.”
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