A METROPOLITAN of the Russian Orthodox Church, who was once widely expected to be the next Patriarch of Moscow has blamed “slander and blackmail” for the Church’s decision to assign him to parish work.

“I have accepted with humility and gratitude and will work where assigned,” Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) told the Russian RIA Novosti news agency at the end of last month.

“The past year has been difficult for me, as enormous efforts were made to prevent me from serving my Church. Secret services, foreign-media agents, persons wanted internationally, defrocked former clergy, and militant atheists have all united for this purpose.”

The Metropolitan spoke in response to an announcement by the Russian Church’s governing Holy Synod on 27 December that he was being “retired” after a six-month investigation into his conduct.

He said that he would now try to “correct shortcomings” in his personal life, but said that President Putin had personally praised him in the past for combining “service to the Church with bright creative activity”.

Now 58, Metropolitan Hilarion was once the second-ranking official in the Church, and was considered a likely successor to Patriarch Kirill. But, in June 2022, he was suddenly appointed Metropolitan of Hungary, four months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, thereby losing his permanent place on the governing Holy Synod (News, 19 July 2024).

Although the Metropolitan had told the TASS news agency that he had not “fitted with the current socio-political situation”, some media speculated that his transfer had been co-ordinated with Russian intelligence to provide the Moscow Patriarchate with a base for influencing Western governments and churches, assisted by the governmernt of the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán.

Accusations of sexual harassment against the Metropolitan surfaced last July.

In its ruling in December, however, the Synod said that it had drawn Hilarion’s attention “to the discrepancy between his way of life and relations with his immediate circle with the image of a monk and clergyman”, and was sending him to a parish at Karlovy Vary, in the Czech Republic.

In his Novosti interview, Metropolitan Hilarion said that claims against him had been falsified at a time of “tough confrontation between Russia and the West”, and that he had filed lawsuits for slander against those responsible.

The Synod ruled that the temporary management of the Budapest-Hungarian diocese is to be entrusted to Metropolitan Mark of Ryazan & Mikhailovsky.