Postcard from Budapest

From Russia, with love

On 5 July the exiled Russian news outlet Novaya Gazetta reported that Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest was granted a Hungarian passport in September 2022 – just three months after he arrived in the city from Moscow to head its Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) diocese. A photograph of the passport ID page showed it had been issued to him as a Hungarian citizen under his secular name, Grigory Alfeyev.

The picture came from a mobile phone in possession of Georgy Suzuki, a Russo-Japanese intern at the centre of abuse allegations against Hilarion. Suzuki, aged just 18 at the start of his placement, lived with Hilarion for 14 months while discerning a priestly vocation. He left the metropolitan’s residence unannounced in January this year, claiming Hilarion had forced him to sleep naked beside him and threatened that things “will be bad” should he leave. Suzuki returned to Japan, taking with him money and a Rolex belonging to Hilarion together with the phone full of photos detailing the metropolitan’s lavish lifestyle in multiple homes across Europe – and the ID page of his Hungarian passport.

Hilarion denies any wrongdoing. Nevertheless, he was recalled to Moscow shortly after the scandal broke, and on 25 July the ROC’s Holy Synod placed Hilarion under disciplinary suspension from diocesan duties.

While the salacious details of the scandal have attracted most attention, the passport picture has more serious implications. Historically, parts of the ROC’s international chaplaincy network have assisted the Russian (and formerly Soviet) overseas intelligence agencies. The Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Church Relations – which Hilarion headed until June 2022 – is considered a close partner of those same agencies.

Hilarion’s surprise transfer to Budapest prompted speculation that he had been demoted for failing to support the invasion of Ukraine, but others suggested his assignment betokened a mission of some kind inside the Schengen zone. That hypothesis now looks far stronger.

With Hungarian citizenship, Hilarion would have access to banking facilities across Europe and the ability to buy real estate– sidestepping international sanctions on Russia. He could also have enjoyed visa-free travel to Canada, the UK and USA.

Viktor Orbán’s government has long been an outlier among EU and Nato members in its relationships with Russia and Ukraine, while the ROC has an important intermediary role in Budapest’s relations with Moscow. In the summer of 2022 Orbán blocked the extension of EU travel sanctions to include Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who has since awarded Orbán the patriarchate’s Order of Glory and Honour – presented by Hilarion on Kirill’s behalf.

On the same day that the ROC suspended Hilarion, it emerged that Budapest would grant “national card” settlement privileges – and thus Schengen zone access – to all Russian and Belarusian citizens. Hungary’s status as the West’s “broken back door” isn’t getting fixed anytime soon, even if Hilarion doesn’t come back through it.

Alexander Faludy is an Anglo-Hungarian freelance journalist based in Budapest.