Metropolitan Hilarion explained the accusations of harassment as an attempt to extort money
Former cell attendant Georgy Suzuki (according to his passport, George) accused Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest and Hungary (in the world, Grigory Alfeyev) of harassment. According to the priest, all this is slander, and in fact, he became a victim of extortion. The hierarch said that he is ready to prove his innocence in court.
According to the head of the diocese, he met Suzuki through correspondence when he was still the head of the Department of External Church Relations (DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate. After Hilarion was appointed metropolitan in Hungary, the young man asked to be his assistant and came to Budapest.
“However, Veronica Suzuki began to visit us later, calling herself his mother (in fact, she was not his mother, but this became clear only after they left),” the priest recalls. He said that in the fall of 2023, the woman came for almost two months and asked to pay her expenses. At that time, the cell attendant stopped performing his duties and began to get along poorly with other assistants.
He was as if zombified all the time, speaking in her phrases. If he was not physically with her, he almost constantly communicated with her through the earphone. Finally, she left, and he stayed. From then on, he never took the earphone out of his ear. It seemed as if she was guiding his actions step by step.
According to the metropolitan, from then on Suzuki began secretly recording and filming him with a hidden camera.
The Metropolitan stated that they wanted to “cut” a large sum from him
In January 2024, Suzuki left. Veronica said that Georgy went to Tokyo for “long-term physical and emotional rehabilitation.” The Metropolitan, according to him, offered to pay his assistant two thousand euros to improve his health, but the woman demanded 384 thousand euros, reporting that “a large archive of materials has been collected” about the priest’s personal life, which could be made public.
Having introduced her son to me, she hoped to introduce herself and live the rest of her days at my expense. And when she realized that this would not work, she developed a plan to “cut” a large sum of money from me by criminal means. And the extortion began. At the same time, she was categorically against any money being transferred to his account
In the correspondence, excerpts from which the Metropolitan brought RIA Novosti, Veronica Suzuki promised that if the head of the diocese transfers the specified amount to her account, then the reputation and personal life of the clergyman will not be threatened. “We will destroy everything we have and conclude an agreement with you in which the charges against you, as well as against Georgy, if there are any, will be dropped. And never in life will this topic be raised again, either with outsiders or between us, if we continue to communicate,” the statement says.
Suzuki put on international wanted list
According to Hilarion, on January 21, after Suzuki’s mother sent her bank account details, he discovered that valuables had been stolen from the safe in the diocesan house. The Metropolitan assumed that the thief had stolen the keys and used them to open the room and the safe. CCTV cameras showed that it was Georgy. Fingerprints and DNA samples were taken from the scene, and the young man was put on an international wanted list.
It is specified that Suzuki does not deny that he “took” expensive watches and money from the Metropolitan’s house, totaling 30 thousand euros.
The priest said that during the investigation it also became clear that the cell attendant had a fake Russian driver’s license and was registered on gay dating sites. (international LGBT public movement recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation) and visited websites with child pornography.
“When I learned all this, I decided to refuse any financial assistance to this family,” said Ilarion.
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