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

"I have never worked for any intelligence [agency], be it Russian or any other. I have never had any tasks or duties or requests on their part," says the former head of foreign relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Hilarion.

Hilarion has broken his silence after a series of allegations levelled against him by a former aide.

"Working for the Church is not compatible with working for intelligence. Those are two very different allegiances," he told the BBC.

Metropolitan Hilarion was for many years a high-flyer in the Church and seen as likely successor to Patriarch Kirill. He fell from grace very quickly after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and was sent into exile in Hungary.

No reason was ever given but close observers of the Orthodox Church were in little doubt. Patriarch Kirill warmly embraced Vladimir Putin's war, but Hilarion neither blessed nor opposed it.

In Putin's Russia, where criticism of the war is a criminal offence, such a stance from a top clergyman was enough to lose Hilarion his job.

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

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

He runs his own YouTube channel, and has posted further allegations using video and audio clips recorded in Budapest.

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

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

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

It was the first meeting between the heads of the two Churches since the great schism of 1054.

Hilarion's case was given added urgency this week when the Czech government said it was considering imposing sanctions on him in response to the allegations against him.

His position on Russia's war in Ukraine has not changed.

"Any war is a tragedy, and the Church is always with the suffering people. That's as much as I can say."

Hilarion's supporters fear that Kremlin hardliners are now out to destroy him.

"Given the way Putin's regime operates, it would hardly be surprising if, in addition to his dramatic demotion in ecclesiastical terms, there had also been a determination to make sure that his reputation was damaged in whatever ways could be arranged," the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, told the BBC.

"The full facts remain unclear, but there is a Kremlin modus operandi that seems recognisable here."

The BBC has been in contact with George Suzuki. He alleges that Hilarion began sexually harassing him soon after his arrival in Budapest.

Hilarion denies harassment of any kind.

According to him, in August 2023, his aide returned to Japan to visit his family, and returned to Budapest three weeks later "a changed man", tense, and unfriendly.

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

Around this time a new character, Veronica Suzuki, enters the story - his aide's grandmother, who had taken custody of George Suzuki as a child.

She joined him in Budapest and stayed for weeks in luxury hotels, paid for by Hilarion.

In January 2024, George Suzuki suddenly disappeared, then wrote to Hilarion from Japan, pleading illness and family problems.

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

He reported her to the Hungarian police for extortion, then found that three expensive watches had been stolen, and cash worth in total €90,000 (£79,000).

He told police, and on the basis of fingerprints, DNA and security camera footage, an international warrant was issued for George Suzuki's arrest.

The stolen goods were later returned, but the former aide turned down Hilarion's offer of mediation to have the arrest warrant against him removed.

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

In one video posted on YouTube, Hilarion can be seen getting into a bed where another figure is lying, apparently asleep.

In another, Hilarion fires a pistol in a shooting range which George Suzuki alleges belongs to the FSB headquarters in Moscow.

In an audio clip, Hilarion can be heard apparently warning his aide that things will go badly for him if he leaves his service and returns to Japan.

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

"My lawyers advised me not to comment publicly on any material, be it textual, visual or audio, released by him or taken by journalists from [George Suzuki's] collection, before they are examined by the court."

"My first mistake was that I allowed him to come to Hungary," Hilarion told the BBC. He also regrets agreeing to the family's "financial demands".

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

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

But the Czech government's decision to consider imposing sanctions on him puts his future there in jeopardy and could force him to return to Russia.

"It is their liberty to decide who they want in the Czech Republic and who they don't want," Hilarion said. He would just like to talk to them before they do.