Metropolitan Hilarion, a Russian Orthodox Church priest based in the Czech Republic, spent two days in police custody. On May 24, his car was stopped on the basis of an anonymous tip and the trunk was searched. Officers found “four small containers with a white substance” that turned out to be an illicit drug. Hilarion insisted he had no idea how the substance ended up in his car. On May 26, he was released without charges. But the incident was unprecedented for the Russian Orthodox Church, whose representatives had never before been taken into custody in Europe on drug-related charges. Meduza explains who Hilarion is and what is known about his detention, which may be a transparent signal that the metropolitan is no longer welcome in the Czech Republic.

In the 2010s, Hilarion was considered the right hand of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2022, he was sent from Moscow to Budapest — not exiled, but ‘relocated.’

Metropolitan Hilarion, whose given name is Grigory Alfeyev, was born in Moscow, studied at a conservatory, then entered a monastery in Vilnius and served in Orthodox churches in Lithuania. He later studied at Oxford, headed the Austrian and Hungarian dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church, and for many years led the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations.

During those years he was regarded as one of Patriarch Kirill’s closest associates and was even named as a possible successor. A theologian and composer, he hosted a program called “Church and World” on the Russia 24 news network. In the summer of 2022, however, Hilarion was abruptly dispatched to Hungary, becoming Metropolitan of Budapest and Hungary and taking charge of what the independent Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe described as one of the smallest dioceses in the Russian Orthodox Church.

He described the transfer this way: “You could say the road took a very sharp turn, I didn’t make it, and ended up on the shoulder.”

Some interpreted the move as exile: a metropolitan who had studied and served in Europe had become an inconvenient figure in the new reality in which the Russian Orthodox Church had backed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But experts polled by BBC Russia concluded that Hilarion had been sent to Viktor Orban — at the time Hungary’s prime minister and the Russian Orthodox Church’s chief protector within the European Union — to carry out sensitive assignments, including shielding the Church from sanctions.

“Personally, to me this looks like a relocation to Europe. Metropolitan Hilarion never once spoke in support of the military campaign [Russia’s war in Ukraine], he always avoided the topic as much as possible in his public statements, and in his television program he ignored what was happening entirely. Given that he held a senior position, it’s obvious he was doing this for a reason and wanted out. I can’t know what was going on inside him in terms of his personal convictions, but his actions show that he wanted to leave,” theologian Andrei Shishkov said.

In 2024, a former personal attendant accused the metropolitan of harassment. After the scandal, Hilarion was demoted and transferred from Hungary to the Czech Republic.

Hilarion apparently found common ground with the Orban government, which from 2022 onward consistently protected the Russian Orthodox Church from sanctions. But his time in Hungary ended in scandal. In 2024, the metropolitan — who had claimed that joining the Church “cures” homosexuality — was accused of harassment. His former personal attendant, Grigory Suzuki, alleged that Hilarion had invited him to live with him, undressed him, and slept with him — though the attendant maintained the relationship did not become sexual.

At some point, Suzuki said he began to fear for his safety and started recording his conversations with Hilarion. He also photographed the metropolitan’s Hungarian passport — Hilarion had obtained Hungarian citizenship shortly after relocating. Suzuki passed all of this to Novaya Gazeta Europe, along with accounts of his relationship with the hierarch, the latter’s expensive real estate in France and Hungary, and his vacations on yachts and at ski resorts.

In early 2024, Suzuki fled the metropolitan’s home, taking with him cash and valuables worth 30,000 euros. Even so, after Suzuki’s escape, Hilarion corresponded with his family, asked for his forgiveness, and offered him money “as a sign of regret for all the mistakes that were made.” Suzuki later passed those letters to journalists as well.

When the story became public, Hilarion accused Suzuki of slander and blackmail. Hungarian police opened a criminal theft case against the attendant, though Novaya Gazeta Europe reported that Suzuki had taken the cash and valuables for his own protection and later returned them. The case against Suzuki was dropped only after Orban’s resignation in the spring of 2026.

By that point, Hilarion’s career was effectively over. In December 2024, the Russian Orthodox Church’s Holy Synod declared that the metropolitan’s way of life and “the nature of his relations with those closest to him” did not befit “the image of a monk and a clergyman.” He was demoted to priest at the Orthodox Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Karlovy Vary. A source at that parish cited by Novaya Gazeta Europe said that Hilarion appears there only on church holidays, preferring to live in Hungary and France.

Hilarion complained of being persecuted in the Czech Republic. His detention may be a hint from the authorities that he should leave, according to Andrei Kuraev.

The Czech Republic, unlike Hungary under Orban, extended no patronage to the Russian Orthodox Church after 2022. While Hungary shielded Patriarch Kirill from sanctions, the Czech Republic imposed them. The former rector of the church in Karlovy Vary where Hilarion now serves was stripped of his residency permit after being deemed an agent of Russian state influence. Czech authorities also planned to add Hilarion himself to a sanctions list. He complained of harassment in the press and anonymous threats by email.

According to Hilarion’s account in his Telegram channel, his detention unfolded as follows. On May 24, the metropolitan and his cameraman left Karlovy Vary. Police caught up with them on the highway, forced them to stop at a gas station, and searched the trunk. Hilarion was not permitted to watch — officers took him into the station’s shop. The search was conducted without independent witnesses and without video recording. Officers ultimately found “four small containers with a white substance.” The metropolitan and his cameraman were detained.

Czech law enforcement did not conceal that they had received a tip that drugs might be in Hilarion’s car. His attorney, Michal Pacovsky, later clarified that the tip had come in an anonymous letter whose contents were unknown. Hilarion denied any connection to drugs and said he considered the detention politically motivated. The Russian Orthodox Church and Russia’s Foreign Ministry took the same position, calling the incident a “staged provocation” and a “classic setup” designed to discredit Orthodoxy.

On May 26, two days after the detention, Hilarion and his cameraman were released from custody without charges and without any other restrictions. The white substance found in his car did turn out to be an illicit drug. The metropolitan, however, continues to insist he does not know how it ended up in the trunk.

The detention itself amounted to a signal that Czech authorities do not want him in the country, according to Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev. “Czech authorities have repeatedly made it clear to Hilarion that he is considered persona non grata. Because he holds a European — specifically Hungarian — passport, however, they lack the legal authority to deport him. But they can drop a hint,” he wrote on Facebook after Hilarion’s detention. After his release, Kuraev added: “This looks like a firm invitation to leave the country.”