"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.
