Tikhon, there is an operation

“An attempt to kill the confessor Putin”, which the special services “broke”, having arrested his novices, may be related to claims to the patriarchal throne

The arrested novices of Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov) gave in court the testimony that they were tortured by electric shock, knocking out the confessions of their intention to kill their spiritual father. And the disgraced novice of Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeeva), who accused him of sexual harassment, suggested that Hilarion could be interested in the “Shevkunov’s case” ... The observer of the “new” evaluates the reliability of “newly discovered circumstances”. And at the same time - for the first time we publish the drawings of the novice of Metropolitan Tikhon Nikita Ivankovich, sent from the pre -trial detention center.

Current - evidence queen

“They put me face on the floor of the minibus, my bag was dressed on my head, my eyes and nose were covered with a sticky ribbon, tape, my hands were connected-I no longer saw something-and some kind of clothespin, or some kind of technical means were attached. I did not see him, but soon I felt how it acts ... ”At a meeting of the Moscow City Court to renew the preventive measure on August 20, detained in the case of“ preparing an assassination attempt on Metropolitan Tikhon ”, novices Nikita Ivankovich and Denis Popovich gave testimonies about the use of the investigation to them, and we will gently, illegal ways of conducting the investigation. The transcript of the testimony was published by Mediazona*.

Earlier, “New” cited similar stories of the lawyers of the novices - Maria Aismont and Viktor Larin: “The evidence was collected with violations, under torture, using electric current.” Now we know how it could be in detail.

The detention at the end of February this year became for 28-year-old clergymen brought up by Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov) and revered him as a father, an absolute surprise. As Nikita Ivankovich said at the trial, the security forces quickly interrupted his story, in which he tried to refute the accusations, and explained to him the “rules of the game”: “When he answered the wrong way, he received the discharge of electric current.”

Denis Popovich spoke more about these rules in court:

“I was asked questions why I wanted to encroach on Metropolitan Tikhon. I explained that this is complete nonsense, that he seems to me a father and so on, but at some point they began to explain the rules of the game ... they said: these are not questions, but statements, so I could have only one answer ... They threatened with a sexual violent acts, then something else, tried to humiliate in every way. Well, in the end, they even threatened the conditionally called liquidation. ”

Nikita recalled in court on February 12 of this year - the day that turned his life over. In the early morning, he was going to serve in the Church of the Resurrection in Sokolniki, where he worked as a sextarm and a catechist. On the door of the Moscow apartment, where he lived with an elderly sick mother, knocked - and Nikita opened. Several people in masked and without, presented a decree on the search, the young man put his face on the floor and put on handcuffs.

Soon, a white package was taken out of his pillow, into which a shovel was wrapped with traces of the Earth, and an unknown mobile phone. “I saw both subjects for the first time,” Nikita told the court.

After the search, he was brought to a neighboring forest park: “There, in a prominent place, a certain container located in the recess under the bush was demonstrated to me. It is worth noting that this is winter. So in such a cleared place there was a container in which lay a pack of juice and an envelope. ”

Soon, the plot with the personal data of the detainee will be shown on Russian television channels (although his fault has not been proven and the case was not even transferred to court) and the presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov himself will comment on him: “The Kiev regime does not disdain anything. There is nothing holy, this is once again confirmed. ” From a container, slightly sprinkled with foliage, the old passports of citizens of Ukraine and the alleged explosive device will be removed.

Of all the incident, as Nikita admitted in court, the “goal of the attack” attributed to him and Denis Popovich, which was attributed to him and Denis Popovich: the murder of Metropolitan Tikhon. Nikita says: “I always sought some kind of person who could replace my father ... In my youth, Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov) became such a person ... A person whom I probably owe many, if not everyone.”

The idea of ​​the murder of someone contradicts the religious beliefs of Nikita and Denis: “As a person who professes Christianity preparing to serve the Church, he could never even think about it, not only to take some actions to participate, organization, preparation and implementation of such evil, insidious and completely terrible plans that attribute me.”

The same arguments are in the testimony of Denis Popovich - a citizen of Ukraine, who has studied in Moscow since 2014 and became Tikhon's confidant:

“I have never interacted with any weapons and in his life, religious beliefs I am an adversary of any violence and violations of the law ... Especially absurdly sound the accusations against me - supposedly I wanted to encroach on the life of an expensive and truly beloved person who represented both the spiritual father and the father in many ways.”

In the near future, Denis, already having the rank of mortgage, planned to be ordained in the priest’s rank, and any shedding of blood, according to canons, closes the path to this.

It would be naive to expect that the court will be interested in the testimony of novices suspected of grave terrorist articles: they were left without changes to both of the preventive measure - they are contained in the Lefortovo pre -trial detention center.

In the Lefortovo cell

The children were transferred to the FSB structure to the main political insulator of Russia, which will soon return to the structure of the FSB, from pre -trial detention center No. 3 in April, to Easter. As the new ”friend of Nikita Ivankovich Roman told, the camera in Lefortovo is much more modest in size. If earlier Nikita wrote about his cellmates - among them were talented people who read his books to him - now nothing is known about them. But Nikita shares the circle of her reading: the story of Valentin Pikul, the “History of God” by the British philosopher Karen Armstrong, the novels of Haled Hossey and Haruki Murakami, the biographical book of Michelle Obama. He loves to look at the clouds behind the barred window “In the search for associations”, draws a lot - old churches and castles (with the permission of Nikita, Roman kindly shared with “new” some of the drawings). He willingly talks about faith with cellmates, but bitter notes also sound in letters:

“Sometimes it’s hard to be in the church,” especially if it renounces you. But Nikita "continues to love her: he often talks about his Orthodox acquaintances, who could be familiar with the saints."

The bride of Nikita recalls how he helped her in an orphanage for the disabled as a volunteer: “At the exits with children, at fairs, he made rosary and bracelets for sale for free,” Roman reports her words. “He himself organized fairs for several years in favor of our social house for the disabled.” The case file about this person says that he "did not possess" sustainable social ties.

Luciferianism

The “new” already spoke in detail about the inconsistencies in the case of Ivankovich and Popovich, who were discovered on the very first day, on February 28, when the FSB Central Department Store published a message and a video about the detention of novices. Recall about them briefly. Most likely, the novices “came into view” of the special services after the publication of the anonymous Orthodox-patriotic telegram channel “Bishop Lucifer” dated September 11, 2022, one of the employees of the Synodal Department for the Interaction between the Church with society and the media can oversee the channel. In any case, the channel’s admins have good access to both the operational information of the security forces and the hacked chats. With reference to such a private correspondence, the secret of which seems to be protected by the Constitution of the Russian Federation, “Bishop Lucifer” signaled that on gatherings in the Sretensky monastery, two novices Tikhon do not support his, preach pacifism and, in general, almost sympathize with Ukraine.

On January 22 of this year, when Nikita Ivankovich, without suspecting anything, served his temple in Sokolniki, and Denis Popovich served 15 days on administrative arrest with very stretched grounds, “Bishop Lucifer” published a leak from the security forces that Popovich “was detained for communication with the terrorist organizations of Ukraine”. The post sagged only 25 minutes, but the "new" published his screenshot.

Suspicions of terrorism were presented to Popovich only three weeks later - February 12, on the same day that Ivankovich was detained. But Lucifer knew everything in advance!

It is difficult to believe that the Ukrainian special services would attract for such a difficult task of people who do not have skills to handle explosive substances, that the cache is a hole sprinkled with foliage, and the main motive of the crime is to obtain internal Ukrainian passports of the old -sample that does not give the right to cross the border. The "new" called the names of the true owners of these passports, since their numbers and the name of the owners appeared closely in the FSB CSB video. They turned out to be Dubensky Vasily Olegovich, an Armed Forces officer, who announced the loss of documents during hostilities in the Luhansk region in May 2023, and Shmarko Ivan Vladimirovich, a former cadet of the P.S. Navy Academy Nakhimov in Sevastopol, who went to the side of the Russian Federation in March 2014.

The date of publication of the CSO FSB CSO is linked with the first meeting of Zelensky with Trump as the newly elected president of the United States. At first, this seems like a simple coincidence, but let's see who commented on the seemingly ordinary event (today in the Russian Federation someone is delayed almost daily on suspicion of relations with the SBU). Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov , just a couple of hours after the TsSO FSB, press secretary of the Patriarch Vladimir Legoyda, who generally demanded that the UN Security Council be convened. Finally, on March 6, at a meeting with patriotic activists in Pskov, Vladimir Putin himself makes a verdict:

“The enemy made an attempt to attempt to the life of Vladyka Tikhon ... They got to the priests already, although they are not fighting with anyone.”

Even if the detention of Popovich and Ivankovich was necessary only to create a momentary PR puan of Trump with Zelensky, then after the statement of Putin himself to admit that it was a mistake, they will almost certainly not.

The shadow of the competitor

The official media and patriotic telegram channels in the first days after the detention of the novices represented Metropolitan Tikhon as the hero of Vera, the symbol of the “spiritual one”, which the enemies outlined as the first victim among the Hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church. The strengthening of propaganda that Tikhon was seeking to meet his “creepers” worked to strengthen this version in order to accept their repentance and forgive them.

At the same time, Tikhon himself stubbornly evades answers to the question about his attitude to this matter, and we have no reason to say that he considers himself a victim.

The Ukrainian authorities, for their part, did not put him in the first positions in the lists of “enemies of Ukraine” among the figures of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Ukrainian media even with some sympathy quoted his calls for reconciliation, which began to be heard from the lips of the Metropolitan in the fall of 2022 .

In a word, if the “case of novices” had some potency to strengthen the heroic and patriotic image of the Crimean Lord, then he himself clearly did not take this opportunity.

But in addition to this version, in the church environment, a rather exotic (if not to say - conspiracyological) circulates, associated with the competition of the main potential candidates in the patriarchs - the conditional “confessor of Putin” by Metropolitan Tikhon and the conditional “leader of the liberals” of Metropolitan Ilarion (Alfeeva). Thanks to the loud scandal of the last year, the positions of the latter were shaken, but in recent months he began to make titanic efforts to rehabilitate his “honest name” and to return to the church Olympus.

On August 22, the former Kelenik and Hypodiacon Hilarion, 20-year-old citizen of Japan, Georgy Suzuki, who, in fact, became the outrage of calm last year, published a video in which he retells the content of Hilarion 56-page claim to Suzuki, aimed at one of the Moscow courts. The former permanent member of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church and the former chairman of the department of external church ties, now serving in the temple in Karlovy Vary, achieves 1 million rubles from his former cell and refutation of the common Suzuki of information. Namely: that Hilarion allegedly did not write many thick books published under his name; is a defendant in criminal cases; cooperates with Western special services; committed sexual harassment; involved in corruption; He leads a non -universal way of life (by the way, the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church recognized on December 27 last year the inconsistency of the character of Hilarion’s relations with the immediate environment and his life “the image of a monk and clergyman”). According to Suzuki, the legal recognition of Hilarion’s innocence by the Russian court will allow him to again receive an appointment to the bishop’s department, and his financial and administrative resources will in the future claim to be a patriarchate.

The compromise of the novices of the main competitor, who “generally turned out to be terrorists,” could become an important element of the PR campaign of this kind. Let Hilarion not an angel, but the election of the Patriarch may well take place on the principle of "from two evils ...".

Georgy Suzuki demonstrated copies of the deputy request and the response to him by the chief prosecutor of Hungary Peter Polta, dated to the January of this year. If you believe these documents, the Hungarian authorities are investigating Ilarion’s accusations of sexual harassment, but they do it strangely: “his location is not established,” they do not declare him on the international wanted list. At the same time, according to Suzuki, Hilarion’s lawyers are in constant contact with his lawyer.

The opaque status of an influential metropolitan in Hungary was revealed at the very beginning of his own, when in June 2022 the Patriarch transferred Hilarion from Moscow to Budapest. Hungary laws establish a 8-year term of permanent residence in the country as a condition for obtaining its citizenship. In extreme cases, for persons born on the territory of Hungary, this period can be reduced to three years. However, Hilarion, his mother and closest employees, were given citizenship after ... three months after the crossing-in September 2022. This was the first similar case in the history of Hungary and caused a flurry of accusations against Orban in the opposition press. It turned out, in particular, that the current prime minister and Metropolitan Hilarion studied in the early 1990s at the Pembruk-College in the UK, and George Soros issued the scholarship of Orban.

Hungary repeatedly blocked the introduction of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in the EU sanctions lists, and in June 2023, the grateful Kirill awarded Viktor Orban the Order of the Russian Orthodox Church of Glory and the honor of the 1st degree.

In trust in Hungary, George Suzuki was able to talk to Hilarion and record some of his confessions about the sources of his financial power. The fact is that all the former cells and confidants of Hilarion - Hieromonk John (Kopeikin), Hieromonk Nikolay (it), Deacon Vyacheslav Lee, Philip Champion - receive certain rewards from the funds affiliated with the Metropolitan (for example, the Foundation of Metropolitan Ilarion, the Foundation "Knowledge", the Holy Mark Brand Fund of St. Ephesus). Such a “payment for silence” - in the amount of 2000 euros per month for 16 years - Hilarion, according to Suzuki, allegedly offered him. The scandal erupted after George and his mother did not agree with Hilarion on the payment procedure (they wanted right away, and Hilarion allegedly insisted on gradualness). Among the possible sponsors of the Metropolitan, our newspaper called Valery Kogan (Ist Line, which ruled Domodedovo), Dmitry Pumpyansky (Sverdlovsk Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs) and the year of Nisanov.

Suzuki completes his video message from the creation of an organization that will protect the young victims (“not only sexual”) officials of the Russian Orthodox Church: “I will help them and make them hear.”

"Do not go, children ..."

It is obvious that the continuation of the work of the novices of Metropolitan Tikhon, synchronized with the full rehabilitation of Metropolitan Hilarion, whom Patriarch Kirill has already made his successor as the church “Minister of Foreign Affairs”, leads to a serious change in the alignment of forces at the very top of the ROC hierarchy. Note that, despite the seriousness of the accusations, Hilarion was not given to the church court or prohibited in the ministry, but only “Soslan” - and then with honor, to a prestigious resort. Официальный сайт Московской патриархии продолжает украшать его помпезная биография с перечислением 25 профессорских и докторских званий, десятков научных и музыкальных произведений, бесчисленных церковных и государственных наград. Его официальная реабилитация на государственном уровне вынудит патриархию вернуть столь выдающегося иерарха на какую-нибудь высокую должность и открыть перед ним еще более высокие перспективы.

Митрополит Тихон пока демонстрирует бессилие. После того как 2 марта в эфире Дмитрий Киселев сообщил, что Тихон добивается встречи со своими арестованными послушниками, встреча так и не состоялась — «свидания не дают».

Об антивоенных взглядах послушников Тихон знал хорошо, но переубеждать их не пытался, ласково называя «хиленькими диссидентами». После того как Никита спел панихиду у храма, где отпевали Навального, Тихон его не отругал, а благословил: «Делай, как велит сердце».

Обе эти истории с послушниками — тихоновскими и иларионовским — хоть и развиваются с разной степенью драматизма, посылают церковной молодежи одинаковый сигнал: в современных условиях лучше держаться подальше от влиятельных архиереев, несмотря на все соблазны церковной карьеры и материального благополучия.

* The Ministry of Justice included in the register of foreign agents.