Editing Russian Orthodox Church (section)

==== Glasnost and evidence of collaboration with the KGB ====
{{Main|Glasnost}}

Beginning  in the late 1980s, under Mikhail Gorbachev, the new political and social freedoms resulted in the return of many church buildings to the church, so they could be restored by local parishioners. A pivotal point in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church came in 1988, the millennial anniversary of the [[Christianization of Kievan Rus']]. Throughout the summer of that year, major government-supported celebrations took place in Moscow and other cities; many older churches and some monasteries were reopened. An implicit ban on religious propaganda on state TV was finally lifted. For the first time in the [[history of the Soviet Union]], people could watch live transmissions of church services on television.

[[Gleb Yakunin]], a critic of the [[Moscow Patriarchate]] who was one of those who briefly gained access to the [[KGB]]'s archives in the early 1990s, argued that the Moscow Patriarchate was "practically a subsidiary, a sister company of the KGB".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB119792074745834591?mod=hpp_us_inside_today |title=Born Again. Putin and Orthodox Church Cement Power in Russia|author= Andrew Higgins|work=[[Wall Street Journal]]|date= 18 December 2007}}</ref> Critics charge that the archives showed the extent of active participation of the top ROC hierarchs in the KGB efforts overseas.<ref name="Vypiski">[http://www.krotov.info/acts/20/1960/1967_loubyanka.html Выписки из отчетов КГБ о работе с лидерами Московской патриархии] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081208122858/http://www.krotov.info/acts/20/1960/1967_loubyanka.html |date=8 December 2008 }} Excerpts from KGB reports on work with the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/feb/12/1 |title=Russian Patriarch 'was KGB spy|work= [[The Guardian]]|date= 12 February 1999}}</ref><ref name="Andrew">[[Christopher Andrew (historian)|Christopher Andrew]] and [[Vasili Mitrokhin]], The [[Mitrokhin Archive]]: The KGB in Europe and the West, Gardners Books (2000), {{ISBN|0-14-028487-7}}</ref><ref name="Albats">[[Yevgenia Albats]] and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. ''The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia – Past, Present, and Future''. 1994. {{ISBN|0-374-52738-5}}, p. 46.</ref><ref name="PrChurch">[[Konstantin Preobrazhensky|Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy]] – [http://cicentre.com/Documents/putin_espionage_church.html Putin's Espionage Church] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081209002520/http://cicentre.com/Documents/putin_espionage_church.html |date=9 December 2008 }}, an excerpt from a forthcoming book, "Russian Americans: A New KGB Asset" by [[Konstantin Preobrazhensky|Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy]]</ref><ref name="CWNrep">[http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=13868 Confirmed: Russian Patriarch Worked with KGB, Catholic World News. Retrieved 29 December 2007.]</ref> [[George Trofimoff]], the highest-ranking US military officer ever indicted for, and convicted of, [[espionage]] by the [[United States]] and sentenced to [[life imprisonment]] on 27 September 2001, had been "recruited into the service of the KGB"<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Trofimoff_Affidavit.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080627153846/http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Trofimoff_Affidavit.htm|url-status=dead|title=George Trofimoff Affidavit|archive-date=27 June 2008}}</ref> by Igor Susemihl (a.k.a. Zuzemihl), a bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church (subsequently, a high-ranking hierarch—the ROC Metropolitan Iriney of [[Vienna]], who died in July 1999).<ref>[http://ortho-rus.ru/cgi-bin/ps_file.cgi?2_599 Ириней (Зуземиль)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071109133930/http://www.ortho-rus.ru/cgi-bin/ps_file.cgi?2_599 |date=9 November 2007 }} Biography information on the web-site of the ROC</ref>

Konstanin Kharchev, former chairman of the Soviet Council on Religious Affairs, explained: "Not a single candidate for the office of bishop or any other high-ranking office, much less a member of the Holy Synod, went through without confirmation by the Central Committee of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU]] and the [[KGB]]".<ref name="Albats" /> Professor Nathaniel Davis points out: "If the bishops wished to defend their people and survive in office, they had to collaborate to some degree with the KGB, with the commissioners of the Council for Religious Affairs, and with other party and governmental authorities".<ref>Nathaniel Davis, ''A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy'', (Oxford: Westview Press, 1995), p. 96 Davis quotes one bishop as saying: "Yes, we—I, at least, and I say this first about myself—I worked together with the KGB. I cooperated, I made signed statements, I had regular meetings, I made reports. I was given a pseudonym—a code name as they say there. ... I knowingly cooperated with them—but in such a way that I undeviatingly tried to maintain the position of my Church, and, yes, also to act as a patriot, insofar as I understood, in collaboration with these organs. I was never a stool pigeon, nor an informer."</ref> Patriarch Alexy II, acknowledged that compromises were made with the Soviet government by bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate, himself included, and he publicly repented for these compromises.<ref>He said: "Defending one thing, it was necessary to give somewhere else. Were there any other organizations, or any other people among those who had to carry responsibility not only for themselves but for thousands of other fates, who in those years in the Soviet Union were not compelled to act likewise? Before those people, however, to whom the compromises, silence, forced passivity or expressions of loyalty permitted by the leaders of the church in those years caused pain, before these people, and not only before God, I ask forgiveness, understanding and prayers." From an interview of Patriarch Alexy II, given to ''Izvestia'' No 137, 10 June 1991, entitled "Patriarch Alexy II: – I Take upon Myself Responsibility for All that Happened", English translation from Nathaniel Davis, ''A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy'' (Oxford: Westview Press, 1995), p. 89</ref><ref>[http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/roca_history.aspx History of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090513181214/http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/roca_history.aspx |date=13 May 2009 }}, by St. John (Maximovich) of Shanghai and San Francisco, 31 December 2007</ref>