[Intelforum] Russian Orthodox Church Monitoring

[Samuel J. Howard]

On another list someone was said that during the Cold War he had seen KGB 
officer (he said) in uniform at a Russian Orthodox Church in Washington, DC 
as worshipers.  I thought to myself that they might have been there as much 
to monitor the Church and/or embassy personel who might be there--or to 
discourage them from being there.

I was relating this story to a friend at lunch today.  He suggested that in 
the debate over whether intelligenge agencies could or should monitor 
mosques in the U.S.  might have an interesting historical parallel in US 
intelligence activities towards Russian Orthodox Churches during the Cold 
War.

Does anyone know anything (public) about this subject or have any idea where 
information on it might be found (published information that is)?

Sam Howard