A Kremlin target? Exiled Church figure Hilarion hits back at claims of spying

“I have never worked for any intelligence” [agency]whether Russian or someone else. “I never had any duties, duties or demands from them,” says Metropolitan Hilarion, the former head of foreign relations of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Hilarion has broken his silence following a series of allegations leveled against him by a former aide.

“Working for the church is incompatible with working for intelligence. They are two very different commitments,” he told the BBC.

Metropolitan Hilarion held a high position in the Church for many years and was seen as the likely successor of Patriarch Kirill. After Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he very quickly fell out of favor and was exiled to Hungary.

No reason was given, but close observers of the Orthodox Church had little doubt about it. Patriarch Kirill warmly embraced Vladimir Putin’s war, but Hilarion neither celebrated nor opposed it.

In Putin’s Russia, where criticizing the war is a crime, such an attitude by a high-ranking cleric was enough for Hilarion to lose his job.

The allegations against Hilarion started from George Suzuki, a 23-year-old Japanese citizen who started working for him after arriving in Budapest in June 2024.

The former theology student accuses him of sexual abuse as well as working for Russia’s FSB intelligence agency.

He runs his own YouTube channel and posts other claims using video and audio clips recorded in Budapest.

Hilarion says some of these have been doctored. He told the BBC he would refute each of them in turn in court.

Metropolitan Hilarion admits errors in his treatment of Suzuki, but denies espionage as well as sexual harassment.

These are difficult moments for a man who, during his 13 years as the Church’s “minister of foreign affairs,” orchestrated a rapprochement with the Catholic Church that led to a historic summit between Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill in Cuba in 2016.

This was the first meeting between the leaders of the two Churches since the great schism of 1054.

Hilarion’s case became even more urgent this week when the Czech government announced it was considering sanctioning him in response to the allegations against him.

Russia’s stance on its war in Ukraine has not changed.

“Every war is a tragedy, and the Church is always on the side of the suffering people. That’s all I can say.”

Hilarion’s supporters fear that conservatives in the Kremlin will now attempt to destroy him.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams told the BBC: “Given the modus operandi of the Putin regime, it would not be surprising if, in addition to his dramatic ecclesiastical demotion, there was also a determination to ensure that he was discredited by any means necessary.”

“The full facts remain unclear, but there is a Kremlin modus operandi Looks recognizable here.”

The BBC is in contact with George Suzuki. She claims that Hilarion began sexually harassing her shortly after her arrival in Budapest.

Hilarion denies any form of abuse.

According to him, his deputy returned to Japan to visit his family in August 2023 and returned to Budapest three weeks later “a changed man”, tense and hostile.

Hilarion also says he has information that Suzuki visited Moscow that same month.

Around this time, a new character, Veronica Suzuki, enters the story; The assistant’s grandmother, who had custody of George Suzuki during his childhood.

She joined him in Budapest and stayed for weeks in luxury hotels that Hilarion had paid for.

In January 2024, George Suzuki suddenly disappeared, and then wrote a letter to Hilarion from Japan, defending his illness and family problems.

Hilarion offered to send €2,000 (£1,760) a month, then received an email from Veronica Suzuki demanding €384,000 be paid into her account in exchange for the destruction of “evidence” her grandson had collected.

She reported him to the Hungarian police for extortion, who subsequently found that three expensive watches had been stolen, with a cash value totaling €90,000 (£79,000).

He notified the police and an international warrant was issued for George Suzuki’s arrest based on fingerprints, DNA and security camera footage.

The stolen goods were later returned, but his former aide turned down Hilarion’s offer to mediate to have the arrest warrant against him lifted.

In June 2024, Suzuki began accusing Hilarion of sexual harassment, ostentatious wealth, and most recently, collaboration with the FSB.

In a video posted on YouTube, Hilarion is seen crawling into a bed where another figure is lying and apparently sleeping.

In another, Hilarion fires a pistol at the shooting range that George Suzuki claims belongs to the FSB headquarters in Moscow.

In an audio clip, Hilarion is heard warning his aide that things would go badly for him if he left the service and returned to Japan.

In the BBC interview, Hilarion says he has evidence that video and audio clips have been doctored, but refuses to go any further.

“My lawyers have advised me not to comment publicly on any written, visual or audio material published by him or received by journalists. [George Suzuki’s] collected before it is reviewed by the court.”

“My first mistake was to let him come to Hungary,” Hilarion told the BBC. He also regrets agreeing to the family’s “financial demands”.

Despite his ordeal, Hilarion remains loyal to the Russian Orthodox church and Patriarch Kirill.

He was investigated by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church and last December retired from his post as head of the Budapest diocese and was transferred to the Church in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic.

But the Czech government’s decision to consider sanctioning him jeopardizes his future here and could force him to return to Russia.

“In the Czech Republic, it is their freedom to decide who they want and who they do not want,” Hilarion said. He wants to talk to them before they do it.