Controversies of Kirill I of Moscow

This is a list of controversies of Kirill I of Moscow.

Links with the KGB

In the early 1990s and later on, Kirill was accused of having links to the KGB during much of the Soviet period, as were many members of the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy, and of pursuing the state’s interests before those of the Church. His alleged KGB agent’s codename was "Mikhailov".

Importation of cigarettes

Journalists of the newspapers Kommersant and Moskovskij Komsomolets accused Kirill of profiteering and abuse of the privilege of duty-free importation of cigarettes granted to the Church in the mid-1990s and dubbed him "Tobacco Metropolitan". The Department for External Church Relations was alleged to have acted as the largest supplier of foreign cigarettes in Russia. Kirill’s personal wealth was estimated to be $1.5 billion by sociologist Nikolai Mitrokhin in 2004, and at $4 billion by The Moscow News in 2006. However, Nathaniel Davis noted that "...There is no evidence that Metropolitan Kirill has actually embezzled funds. What is more likely is that profits from the importation of tobacco and cigarettes have been used for urgent, pressing Church expenses." The duty-free importation of cigarettes ended in 1997. In his 2002 interview with Izvestia, Metropolitan Kirill called the allegations about his profiteering a political campaign against him.

[...] Riot and accusations of extravagance

Three female members of an anarchist artistic group called [...] Riot were arrested in March 2012 for performing a brief song in the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow during which they called on the Virgin Mary to "chase Putin out". The women (two of them mothers) were arrested for hooliganism, faced up to seven years in jail, and were later sentenced to two years. Commenting on the case, Kirill said they were "doing the work of Satan" and should be punished. This sparked criticism of the Orthodox Church on the Runet for not showing mercy, while Amnesty International described the women as "prisoners of conscience". Bloggers also began to openly criticise Kirill's perceived extravagant lifestyle: when accused of wearing a Swiss Breguet watch worth over £20,000, Kirill denied having worn it, saying that any photographs showing him wearing it must be fakes. However, photographs on his official website showed it on his wrist and one even showed it airbrushed out, but with a reflection of it still visible on a table surface. Kirill responded by saying that "the guilty ones [for the image manipulation] will be punished severely". A spokesperson added that it was "unethical" to discuss Kirill's private life, and the Russian Orthodox Church said on 4 April 2012 that foreign forces were taking revenge on it for supporting Putin: "The attacks have become more prominent during the pre-election and post-election period [... This] shows their political and also anti-Russian motives."

"Gold" dust of the Patriarch

In March 2012, the former RF Health minister (1999–2004) Yury Shevchenko, pursuant to the court ruling, paid about 20 million rubles ($676,000) in compensation for the dust resultant from the renovation work that had settled in a flat upstairs in the prestigious House on the Embankment privately owned by Gundyayev (Patriarch Kirill) and occupied by the Patriarch's long-time friend businesswoman Lidia Leonova. According to the media reports, the former minister is personally acquainted with the then RF prime-minister Vladimir Putin.

"I sold my apartment in St. Petersburg, and we paid the required sum," said Shevchenko's son, also Yury, in early April 2012.

According to the lawsuit, renovation works in Shevchenko's apartment stirred up a lot of dust, which settled on a collection of valuable books owned by Kirill. The Patriarch confirmed his ownership of the dusty apartment in a private conversation with journalist Vladimir Solovyov.

Most of the reports in the media tended to be critical of Patriarch Kirill and laughing at the claims that the dust was harmful, pointing out that it was just sand and it would have been far more efficient to just hire a maid to vacuum it up. The Patriarch himself then said he thought it to be inappropriate to forgive Shevchenko.

Silver Shoe Award

In June, 2012, Kirill was given the Silver Shoe Award (given in Russia each year “for the most dubious achievements in show business") for "immaculate disappearance of a watch” in the category "Miracles up to the elbows”. The award found a pained reaction from representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church

Nomination for Nobel Prize

In 2012 the Russian Consumer Rights Protection Society sued the church management for alleged commercial operations in Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Church representatives stated in court that goods dispensed for money in the cathedral were actually religious items handed out as free gifts in exchange for voluntary "recommended donations." Judge Kananovich agreed with this reasoning and defeated the claim. In August 2012 Mikhail Anashkov, the head of the Consumer Rights Protection Society, in his sarcastic open letter nominated Kirill and Kananovich for the Nobel Prize in Economics because they disproved the basic tenet of the economic theory that defines the exchange of goods for money as "commerce".