Watch this little clip, you will immediately understand:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3k6Rs5JPE8
For more info:
The 2007 reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) with the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) was not a spontaneous ecclesiastical reconciliation but the culmination of a long-term, calculated political and intelligence operation directed by the Russian state and its security services (KGB/FSB) under Vladimir Putin.
Following the Soviet collapse and perestroika, ROCOR—historically an anti-communist bastion preserving pre-revolutionary Orthodoxy—faced internal shifts. Ackerly-Dolskaja documents how the October 2000 Epistle from ROCOR’s Council of Bishops marked a pivotal turning point: it recognized the MP as a legitimate church and effectively nullified the 1927 Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, which had subordinated the church to the Soviet regime. This opened the door to dialogue despite ROCOR’s traditional view of the MP as compromised by collaboration with atheist authorities that had persecuted millions of faithful.
Protests from clergy and laity were suppressed, with dissenting voices labeled “sectarians,” “fanatics,” or “extremists”—language echoing KGB tactics. In July 2001, Metropolitan Vitaly (the First Hierarch) was forcibly and illegally removed in what Ackerly-Dolskaja describes as a “coup d’état,” involving figures like Archbishop Mark (Arndt) and Bishop Gabriel. Vitaly’s June 2001 epistle opposing rapprochement was suppressed, and subsequent Synod actions were deemed irregular. This internal takeover by a “pro-MP faction” mirrored Soviet-style control mechanisms.
FSB Strategy: “Operation ROCOR” and Church Infiltration
Preobrazhensky, a former KGB officer, explicitly frames this as “Operation ROCOR”—part of a broader post-Soviet FSB effort to penetrate and subordinate the Russian émigré community, especially its religious institutions. The FSB shifted focus from Cold War-era targets to recruiting and influencing Russian diaspora groups, using the church as a “Trojan Horse” for soft power, intelligence gathering, and political leverage abroad.
Key elements include:
Putin, a committed chekist with deep FSB ties, cultivated a close alliance with the MP. The church became a tool for “uniting all Russians” worldwide under Moscow’s influence, blending spiritual authority with state patriotism. Preobrazhensky notes the MP’s history as a state-controlled entity (revived by Stalin) made it ideal for this.
Dynasties of agents, disinformation, and pressure on émigré leaders. Pro-MP advocates within ROCOR (e.g., Archbishop Mark’s public statements favoring union with “World Orthodoxy” and the MP as early as 1997) advanced convergence while downplaying ecumenism concerns and MP’s Soviet legacy.
The 2007 Act of Canonical Communion formalized the union under Putin’s consolidating power. Ackerly-Dolskaja portrays it as “high treason” against ROCOR’s founding principles—the abandonment of its independent witness against Sergianist compromise. Preobrazhensky links it directly to FSB successes in neutralizing émigré opposition, using the church for influence operations among Americans of Russian descent and broader diaspora. Putin’s regime viewed full control over ROCOR properties, communities, and narratives as strategically vital for projecting Russian power abroad.
Books on this topic:
1. Olga Ackerly-Dolskaja’s High Treason: The Luring of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad to the Moscow Patriarchate
https://drive.google.com/file/d/108g00WhuEvOntZgxzOsFwJrjuDDkPPr7/view?usp=drive_link
2. Konstantin Preobrazhensky’s KGB/FSB’s New Trojan Horse: Americans of Russian Descent
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JO7Wq4u4tgxPjmmz_8IBPkvOeDHgPhof/view?usp=drive_link
Also see watch the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQvsRzXPOuc