ABSTRACT
In both East and West the public face of twenty-first century intelligence changed dramatically in the months preceding the Gregynog conference, which gave rise to the studies in this volume. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Soviet intelligence system from Cheka to KGB was its militant atheism. In March 2002, however, the FSB, the born-again post-Soviet successor to the domestic arm of the KGB, at last found God. A restored Russian Orthodox Church in central Moscow was consecrated by Patriarch Aleksi II as the FSB’s parish church in order to minister to the previously neglected spiritual needs of its staff. The FSB Director, Nikolai Patrushev, who was present at the consecration, celebrated the mystical marriage of the Orthodox Church and the state security apparatus by a solemn exchange of gifts, presenting the Patriarch with ceremonial golden keys to the church and receiving in exchange two religious icons – the possession of which would formerly have been a sufficiently grave offence to cost any KGB officer his job. Those who visit the FSB Church when next in Moscow may like to stop for lunch, dinner or a cocktail in the nearby Shield and Sword Café, which takes its name from the traditional symbols of the KGB (inherited from the Cheka), and appears to cater to a clientele drawn largely from the nearby FSB headquarters. A bust of Yuri Andropov, the only KGB chief to become Soviet leader, stands on a pedestal draped with blue velvet in the lobby, while the restaurant itself is dominated by a statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka.2
