SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Calls Ecumenical Patriarchate ‘the Anti-Christ’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 16 – The SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, has called Bartholemew, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople “the anti-Christ,” a British agent, and someone who is working to undermine the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine, the Baltic Countries, and the Balkans.

            In a press release (svr.gov.ru/smi/2026/01/konstantinopolskiy-patriarkh-varfolomey-antikhrist-v-ryase.htm), which does not appear to have been coordinated with the ROC MP (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/01/16/svr-nashla-antikhrista-eto-patriarkh), the SVR cites not Russian law or evidence for its conclusions but rather a verse from the Bible.

            Both the Ecumenical Patriarchate and its allies have rejected the charges which embarrass the ROC MP more than anyone else (ec-patr.org/anakoinosi-schetika-me-tin-dilosi-ross/ and rfi.fr/ru/европа/20260115-антихрист-в-странах-балтии-реакции-на-заявление-российской-свр-о-константинопольском-патриархе).

            On the one hand, the SVR’s suggestion that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is an agent of British intelligence calls attention to the ways in which Moscow has routinely used Orthodox priests abroad to support its intelligence operations, with Britain rather than the US being chosen so as not to attack Donald Trump.

            And on the other hand, by putting out such a statement, the SVR has shown that in Moscow’s opinion, the ROC MP is to operate as a surrogate for the Russian state but that Orthodox churches elsewhere are supposed to remain loyal to the Russian church rather than to the laws and traditions of their own countries.

            That may be how the ROC MP has to operate given Kremlin demands, but it is not something the Russian church benefits from by proclaiming it as openly as the Russian intelligence service now has.