"Peresvet" weakened

Temporary administration introduced at ROC bank amid reports of asset stripping

Bank Peresvet, in which on October 21 the Central Bank introduced temporary administration and for which bankruptcy proceedings are now not ruled out, was a pillar of the financial system of the Moscow Patriarchate. Created in the early 90s on the initiative of the then Metropolitan Kirill, it was under the direct control of the patriarchate, but it also had a good state cover in the person of the second shareholder - the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation. Now the system of guarantees has not worked… Approximately a third of all the funds of the ROC are stuck in the bank, although experts say that the hierarchs managed to withdraw part of the money. What is it - the beginning of the flight of church capital from Russia or a decisive blow from the authorities to the church pocket?

Creating anew, practically "from scratch", the Moscow Patriarchate in the autumn of 1943, Stalin gave instructions to his "chief prosecutor" G.G. Karpov, colonel of the NKVD-NKGB, appointed the first chairman of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church. One of the instructions was the classic: "Do not look into the pocket of the priest." In exchange for serving the interests of the authorities, the "reconstituted" official church was allowed not to report much about its financial situation. Even church choristers or watchmen remember how, back in Soviet times, the salary was given to them in envelopes and differed significantly from the salaries of doctors and teachers ...

The similar nature of the church economy and the excessive trust of the majority of Russians in the ROC were the main competitive advantages of Peresvet Bank, which, by the time it suspended its activities, had climbed to a solid 41st place in the rating of Russian banks (and only 3 months ago it was still in 47th) . It was no coincidence that the depositors who gathered on the morning of October 21 at the main office of the bank on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment in Moscow convinced each other that “Nabiullina is to blame for everything”, “this is a hit on the church”, but the patriarch will protect and will not let the “saint” created by his own hands be trampled on just like that. » bank.

First, a little history and statistics. The bank was founded in 1992 as a result of an agreement between the then chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Kirill, and the management of the Moscow Expocentre, control over which passed to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation. The central office of the bank remained in the Expocentre, and the second one was opened on Sergius of Radonezh Street - in memory of the bank's heavenly patron, the monk Peresvet, whom St. Sergius blessed to take part in the Battle of Kulikovo. Among the founders of the bank, in addition to the DECR, were the Kaluga and Kostroma eparchies, which then enjoyed Kirill's special confidence, and Metropolitan Kirill himself, as well as the current metropolitans Clement and Mark, were successively on the board of directors of Peresvet. The idea was that the ROC MP would have its own bank, but with a certain amount of state guarantees.

Peresvet served a number of commercial schemes of the 90s, on which the current patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church MP amassed his capital and which Novaya Gazeta repeatedly wrote about (see Novaya Gazeta of January 22, 2016 - “Divine Providence of the Russian Orthodox Church”, and February 14, 2012 - “For what should the servant of God Kirill thank the “galley slave”). In particular, we reported that there is reason to assume conscious actions of the patriarchate to weaken two other Russian banks with church participation in order to strengthen Peresvet and concentrate all church capital in it. So, several years ago, on the orders of the patriarch, the Unified Customer Service of the Moscow Patriarchate transferred its accounts from Sofrino Bank to Peresvet with a multibillion-dollar turnover. In July 2014, the Central Bank revoked the license from Sofrino, and at the beginning of this year, Ergobank ceased its activities, where considerable funds of 61 institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church were also stored.

In addition to serving the famous “tobacco scam” (when in 1995-1996 billions of excise-free cigarettes were imported into the Russian Federation under the guise of “humanitarian aid to the church”), Peresvet was at that time involved in the Holy Spring project for the extraction and bottling of water by the Kostroma diocese.

With the election of Cyril as patriarch, the affairs of Peresvet went uphill. Its capitalization over the past 16 years has increased hundreds of times, and the largest Russian companies and government agencies (Transneft, RUSNANO, Pulkovo Airport, Federal Passenger Company, etc.) have become clients. Now they have problems, because the deposit insurance system in the Russian Federation applies only to individuals. Peresvet, although symbolically, but actively and defiantly participated in supporting the United Russia party: from 2005 to 2007. he annually transferred 10 million rubles to her (then it was no longer possible by law), then this initiative was continued by the Alfa-Audit auditing firm serving the bank.

Over the 24 years of Peresvet's activity, the ROC MP either reduced or increased its share in its capital. By October 21, this share did not reach the blocking stake by only tenths of a percent. Church shares are distributed between the Financial and Economic Department of the ROC MP (36.5%), whose head Metropolitan Mark (Golovkov) has remained unavailable for comment for more than a week, and Assistance LLC (13.2%). Another 24.4% of the bank is owned by Expocentre JSC (and it is controlled by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation), 12.8% by the head of the board of the bank Alexander Shvets, and 1.7% by Vnukovo-Invest LLC, owned by Pavel Panasenko , he is also the vice president of Peresvet.

Actually, the current disaster of a generally prosperous bank with a good reputation (the international rating agency Standard & Poor's Global Ratings gave it a solid "B +", Fitch agreed with him) began with the mysterious disappearance of the head of the bank's board, Alexander Shvets, on October 13. This was preceded by a cautious statement by the international agency Fitch on October 5 that the bank suddenly began issuing "high-risk" loans - that is, distributing money to dubious organizations that do not have real assets. Moreover, according to the same agency, some of these organizations allegedly had signs of affiliation with representatives of the bank's management. It looked very strange against the backdrop of a cautious and balanced credit policy, which, according to experts, the bank has been conducting for at least the last 15 years.

Apparently, it can be assumed that a sudden and rapid withdrawal of capital from the bank began, which may indicate a conscious preparation of its management for the “evacuation”, which really followed a few days later. The bank responded to these assumptions not with a refutation, but with the publication of positive reports about its successes in recent months, and about the disappeared head of the board, it vaguely announced that he was “treated”.

Where and for what Mr. Shvets is being treated, so far it has not been possible to find out ... On October 18, the bank limited the issuance of cash to creditors in the amount of 100 thousand rubles. It already looked like an act of surrender. The cost of the bank's bonds immediately fell by 28%, and on October 21 - by another 28%. That is, the bank has lost more than half of its market capitalization, and the temptation to start bankruptcy proceedings instead of reorganization, which is called for by the Central Bank's largest creditors of Peresvet, is very strong for the interim administration.

The main intrigue today is formulated as follows: was what happened to Peresvet a conscious action by the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church to withdraw the remnants of church capital, or did sudden dishonest actions take the patriarch and his entourage by surprise just like ordinary bank depositors? Intuition and common sense lead to the first answer, although, of course, in conditions of economic panic, anything can happen ...

Joy that goes beyond gloating is expressed by Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, a close collaborator of Patriarch Kirill for many years, and now his noteworthy opponent, over the Peresvet catastrophe. “God cannot be mocked,” Chaplin writes on his blog. – The participation of the clergy in usury is prohibited by the holy canons… Your obedient servant and several other Orthodox people have been reminded of this many times in recent years – both behind the scenes and publicly. The answer was either silence or opposition, not least in order to preserve Peresvet and the Church's participation in it. But the Lord Himself intervenes. He ruins - and finally ruins! - the abomination of "church" usury. And the Spokesmen are already hiding from journalists. And church money is already being withdrawn from the problematic place - as confidants tell me, about a week and a half ... It is necessary to publicly investigate who gave instructions - even verbal - about such a large-scale participation of church structures in usurious schemes.

So, the flight of church capital from Russia has begun? If this is so, then the patriotic rhetoric of the patriarch, who continues to revive the “Russian world” and raise Russia from its knees, sounds less and less convincing.