For what merits of the “Minister of Foreign Affairs” of the Russian Orthodox Church received elite real estate in Spain from a businessman with a dubious reputation?

“The fact that today in Spain, when it is one of the prosperous countries, is massively selling real estate with Spaniards and massively bought by Russians is a very good signal to the whole world.” These words were uttered by Patriarch Kirill on February 8, 2012 at a meeting with Vladimir Putin, when he blessed him for a third term. That winter was remembered by the record surge in protest sentiments in Moscow and St. Petersburg, so the support of the Russian Orthodox Church was not superfluous for Putin. The passage of Spain was preceded by the historical phrase of Cyril, which entered the Annals: “You personally played a huge role in correcting the curvature of our history, Vladimir Vladimirovich!”

Did the Patriarch then that four months earlier, September 30, 2011, his closest employee and successor as chairman of the Department of External Church Relations (ACHS) Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev) became one of those happiest Russians who, thanks to Putin’s policy, became owners of Spanish real estate? What certainly could not know the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church - that very soon these Russians instead of a “very good signal to the whole world” will begin to send a distress signal.

Among the victims of the dubious “scheme” with Spanish real estate, Metropolitan Hilarion risks being the risk of being. As they turned out to be almost all of his neighbors in the housing cooperative Mare Nostrum II, located on the picturesque slope of the hill near the sea in the city of Altea (Alicante Province).

Monastic penthouse

Grigory Alfeev (the worldly name of Hilarion) belongs to one of the most expensive penthouses of the cooperative. It is located on two levels of the last floors, has its own open and closed terraces, a barbecue site, a pool, two bedrooms with bathrooms and much more. The total area of ​​apartments in house 25 on Repetidor Street, according to the official booklet of the developer, is more than 235 square meters. m, and the price (as of 2011) is 950,000 euros. The nearest hierarch neighbor, also known for his composer talents, is Tamara Gverdsiteli, and in the house the director and TV presenter Julius Gusman, producer Timur Vainstein, former prime minister of Azerbaijan Novruz Mamedov, Ukrainian businessman Yuriy pharmacist and other respected people own apartments.

The circumstances of the acquisition by the Metropolitan of the apartment are not quite transparent. On the one hand, like any monk, when tonsure, he vowed the non -possessions and, in theory, could not own personal property, except for the most necessary in everyday life. On the other hand, Ilarion receives a rather modest salary for work in several church positions, which would hardly be enough for an elite foreign real estate. But there is a third side. For the use of products of their intellectual work and creativity - numerous books, films and musical works - hierarch receives all kinds of fees and rewards, becomes a laureet of bonuses.

These funds, in the case of their many years of accumulation, could have been enough for a millionaire penthouse.

By the way, the worldly name of the metropolitan appears in another real estate register - already Russian. Hilarion is one of the three founders of the organization of the owners of the Novoaleksandrovo houses in the Moscow Region Urban District Mytishchi.

Metropolitan infrequently comes to Altea. More precisely, it is reliably known only about one visit to his visit when, rising on a luxurious yacht along the Mediterranean Sea, he stopped briefly in the Spanish town. But in the Penthouse they saw the mother of the hierarch Valery Anatolyevna - the Soviet writer, whose surname was given to him in childhood (by Father Ilarion - Dashevsky). With the neighbors of Valery Anatolyevna rarely intersected - Penthouse has a separate exit to the street, bypassing the communal entrance.

They saw a man, similar to the 33-year-old hieromonk John (Kopeikin), who made a dizzying swift career under the omophore of Metropolitan Hieromonk. Having graduated from the Zaledunaya Penza Theological School in 2007, three years later he had already studied at the University of Friburburg in Switzerland, and two more later he headed the magistracy of general church graduate school and doctoral studies (DRCAD), the rector of which is Hilarion. With the activities of about. John is connected to the display of ANO “Center Knowledge”, which publishes official textbooks for theological schools of the Russian Orthodox Church, from the structure of the LEC to the structure of the Cognition charity fund, the only founder of which is Metropolitan Halarion. Thus, copyright to these textbooks transferred from the Russian Orthodox Church personally to Hilarion. However, this is a topic for a separate publication ...

Roof

The Metropolitan neighbors, who were victims of fraud, are convinced that the apartment on the Spanish coast is convinced to the chairman of the ACCS ... they gave it. Indirect confirmation of their guesses is published information about debtors to pay utility bills.

At the general meeting of owners of the Mare Nostrum II residential complex in August this year, it was stated that Grigory Alfeev took first place among debtors.

His communal debt reached 20 thousand euros. “What is the point, buying an apartment for a million,“ save ”on several thousand, running into trouble and the danger of publicity? - the neighbor of Hilarion Elena Mishchenko is perplexed. “The only logical version: a person believes that the apartment received as a gift should not be paid.”

What is the meaning of such a luxurious gift and who made it?

Near the residential complex Mare Nostrum II flaunts a Russian wooden temple, which is in private property, but canonically obey the Russian Orthodox Church. He became the first in the history of Spain by a separate (not brownie) Russian temple. Construction was completed in 2004, and in 2007 the temple was personally consecrated by Metropolitan Kirill, the future patriarch, in honor of the architect of God Mikhail, the heavenly patron of the developer of the complex and the temple, the Spanish businessman of Russian origin Mikhail Botsk. Recently - also the chairman of the Spanish branch of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society, headed by Sergei Stepashin.

Mikhail Botsk chose incorrect linguistic, but commercially successful transcription of his surname to Spanish - Bosco. And after he began to print his own advertising products using characteristic patterns from the Bosco corporate identity, the trusting Spanish audience accepted an entrepreneur who moved in the late 90s from Rostov-on-Don, for the legal representative of the world brand. According to the businessman, the host of the Alikante newspaper claimed that it was Mikhail Botsko (Bosco) "sewing the uniform for the Olympic teams of Spain and Russia."

To work with real estate, Botsko registers Verabosco, named after his mother, sentenced two years ago for fraud in Rostov-on-Don. At the end of the zero, the company was an indispensable participant in foreign real estate fairs in Moscow and had an office on Yakimanka, but even its site is not available. Several apartments were issued on Vera Botsk in the house that interests us, while trying to go to Spain in 2016, she was detained at Domodedovo Airport. At a very respectable age, heading Crystal Logist LLC, she received almost 13 million rubles from the federal budget for the supply of furniture for the Southern Federal University, but tried to deceive the customer, putting low -quality furniture, which was several times cheaper. In 2017, the Lenin Court of Rostov-on-Don pleaded guilty of fraud, but freed it from punishment due to advanced age (76 years). At the same time, it turned out in court that the grandmother heads 19 more companies, which could also be used in money laundering schemes.

In a word, Mikhail Botsk-Bosco had a good family school.

According to Elena Mishchenko, “he sold the main part of the apartments in our house with a burden in the form of a mortgage that he took at the construction stage, and did not extinguish. Usually he made out transactions by proxy, using ignorance by buyers of the Spanish language and gullibility to the compatriot who built the Orthodox Church. ” Needless to say, a degree of gullibility only increased from the fact that “Metropolitan Hilarion lives in the house”? For many years, respectable buyers did not know anything about the burden, which was not recorded in their testimonies of ownership of the apartment. The scam opened only when some of the residents tried to sell their apartments.

Among the victims of Verabosco are the same Julius Gusman, Timur Weinstein and Yuri Pharmacy. Guzman and pharmacist have already begun a lawsuit against Botsk, during which it turned out that the developer is already a person involved in 79 criminal cases in Spain. The peak of his adventurous career was the official application submitted in 2014, about the intention to buy ... Valencia football club. Oddly enough to talk about this, but at first the Spanish organizers of the competition believed that Mikhail Botsk “dressed Olympic teams”, owns the bank and builds Orthodox churches. He submitted an application for the competition on the form of a certain Golden Star LLC, which decorates the picture of the oil tower and the phrase Petrol Investment. According to the Russian base, SBIS, this LLC has a charter capital of 10,000 rubles and is engaged in the "trade in wholesale non -food consumer goods." Nevertheless, Mr. Bosco presented the Spanish side with a subsequent certificate from Sberbank, according to which the rostbled residue on the Golden Star account exceeded 12 billion rubles. Shortly before the competition for the purchase of Valencia, the Spanish newspaper Epoca managed to expose the self -proclaimed Don Bosco.

“A citizen of Russian origin,” the newspaper wrote, “filed a criminal about Mikhail Botsk, his son Maxim Botsko and his real estate agency Verabosco. The applicant requires 270,000 euros - Botsk cheated on this amount when buying property. The judge recognized the signs of a crime and decided to charge the Botsk family members. The fraud is that the house has a mortgage loan, which was supposed to be canceled when buying an apartment, but was never rented by the seller. ”

After paper purchases by Russians in 2009–2011. The Spanish real estate market has sagged significantly: over the past few years, the apartments there have fallen in average half, it is extremely difficult to sell them. The Spanish Bank, in which Botsk made a mortgage, sold his debts to Deychebank, which, according to preliminary data, intends to sue conscientious buyers and arrest their real estate on the debt repayment. By the way, the mortgage debt of Metropolitan Hilarion, who also became the victim of the “scheme”, allegedly reached 440 thousand euros over 8 years. But, they say, in order to avoid too loud scandal, Mikhail Botsko is actively seeking a way to repay the duty of the hierarch. But his neighbor Novruz Mammadov chose to actually pay for his apartment for the second time in order to get her out of the risk of arrest ...

Again the "Temple on the Blood"?

In modern Russia, it is quite difficult to draw a border between ordinary parishioners of the Russian Orthodox Church and the world of corruption crime. If in the rural outback before our eyes abandoned ancient temples are destroyed, then in rich cities and regions of gas -snow -eating as mushrooms, endless golden domes grow after the rain. The construction of the "Temple of Stuccal Accessibility" is almost the most reliable cover for laundering shadow money. The temple of St. Michael in Altea.

Mikhail Botsko, through the fund he created, owns temple buildings and consists of an elder of the parish, and his wife - a treasurer. The consecration of the temple 12 years ago, the then Metropolitan Cyril awarded the Botz as the Order of the Monk Sergius of Radonezh. But Botsko built the temple not at his own expense-the money for construction was given to him by a colleague and a Rostov countryman Nikolai Gorelov, who, as a result, found himself in a very difficult situation at his 77 years. At first, Gorelov managed to arrest all Botsk’s apartments through the Spanish court. However, in 2011, he agreed to bring out of the arrest the very apartment that Hilarion now owns. Later, Botsk's lawyers achieved the removal of the arrest from the rest of the apartments, and the debt to Gorelov Botsk promised to return with money. According to the loan agreement, the repayment period expired on December 19, 2012. On March 17, 2014, the Judicial Collegium for Civil Affairs of the Rostov Regional Court admitted that Botsko did not repay the debt, and ordered him to pay Gorelov more than 13.5 million rubles. Since the court decision remained unfulfilled, M.V. restrictions on the right to leave the Russian Federation were imposed, however, as his partners claim, he nevertheless crosses the border according to the second passport. Nikolai Gorelov, having lost his son and wife and was left without a livelihood, became seriously ill and needs help. Such, so to speak, the humanitarian price of the magnificent Russian temple in the Spanish Altea.

During the consecration due to the conflict character of the owner, 5 rectors were replaced in the temple. The penultimate of them is about. Adam Kondratyuk - fled to the neighboring city of Benidorm, where "from scratch" began to build a temple in the name of St. Seraphim of Sarov. Exactly a year ago, the Moscow Patriarchate created the Spanish diocese, which is the managing of which Bishop Nestor (Sirotenko) was appointed. Legally the temple of St. Michael was not transferred to the diocese, but remains under the jurisdiction of the private fund Mikhail Botsko ...

Towards the decisions of the Synod

On December 25, a joint meeting of the Holy Synod and the Higher Church Council was scheduled in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Patriarch Kirill, dissatisfied with the crisis of church administration and especially external church ties, is tuned to a tough conversation with Metropolitan Hilarion.

At the October meeting of the Synod, he was appointed a deputy - Archbishop Leonid (Gorbachev), and in the decree of the Synod there was a hidden hint of the large career prospects of Leonid (owns "Greek, English and spoken Arabic (Egyptian dialect) languages"). The possession of the Egyptian dialect is important in the context of the rupture of the ROC with the Alexandria Patriarchate on November 8 - the second most important in the Orthodox world.

Metropolitan Hilarion has been the “Minister of Foreign Affairs” of the Russian Orthodox Church for almost 11 years. It is during the years of his chairmanship that the GPC is “loss of Ukraine” and the gradual isolation of the Russian Orthodox Church in “world Orthodoxy” as a result of a break with the largest local churches - the Constantinople and Alexandria Patriarchate and the Elladskiy Archbishopia (Greece). Among the episcopate, the ironic nickname “Composer” entrenched in him, hinting that the Ilarion’s writer is more successful than in diplomatic. If in the early years of the Patriarchate of Cyril it was Hilarion that was considered almost the official successor of the Patriarch, then in recent years his hardware weight fell sharply, and the “Lubyansky” Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov) broke into unconditional leaders. Perhaps it is precisely the fear of further strengthening Tikhon that forces the Patriarch to preserve Hilarion in the post in order to have at least some counterbalance to the "confessor of the president."

Under the text

& Nbsp
The high standards of bishop consumption in the Russian Orthodox Church, of course, are set by Patriarch Kirill. According to the Moscow News, by 1997 the department of external church ties he led by him brought 18 billion cigarettes into Russia, not taxed by excise fees. Later there were publications on the participation of Cyril in automobile, oil, jewelry and fish businesses. Thanks to this, the reputation of a billionaire, the richest person in the Russian Orthodox Church, whose fortune is estimated in the range of $ 4-8 billion, was entrenched in him. This information almost does not lend itself to verification, since the Patriarch preferred to store the savings in Swiss banks, from where in recent years they were partially transferred to Austria and Italy (probably under the guarantees of the Vatican).

It is reliably known that Cyril, under his worldly name, Vladimir Mikhailovich Gundyaev owns a penthouse in the Moscow house on the embankment (2 Serafimovich St.). This fact was widely publicized in 2012-2013, when, in the interests of the patriarch, a certain Lidia Leonova, called the cousin or second cousin of the patriarch, began the trial, demanding from the neighboring apartment of the former Minister of Health of the Russian Federation Yuri Shevchenko, who allegedly caused the library of the Patriarch, covering the book by an invisible layer of Nanopoli. The court seized the apartment from Shevchenko to compensate for the damage, which significantly expanded the possession of the Patriarch in this house.

Read also

Patriarch and its surroundings. The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church raised the standards of life to an unattainable height. Excursion on "Holy Places"

The constant actual place of residence of the Patriarch is the “Skit object” in the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region, protected by the FSO, with an opaque structure of property (perhaps the share belongs to V.M. Gundyaev, access to the state register for this facility is closed). Резиденция патриарха на Черном море под Геленджиком, строительство которой оценивалось в миллиард долларов, формально принадлежит РПЦ, но свободного доступа туда нет даже для архиереев. В частной собственности Кирилла находится шале под Цюрихом, в Швейцарии, подаренное ему еще в 1970-е гг., во время службы во Всемирном совете церквей. Предположительно, он обладает долями собственности ряда объектов недвижимости в Москве, Московской, Смоленской и Калининградской областях. В полном распоряжении патриарха находится более 20 резиденций, формально принадлежащих различным централизованным и местным религиозным организациям РПЦ.