Icons confiscated from smugglers have been returned to the Russian Orthodox Church

N. Patrushev, director of the Federal Security Service, handed over to Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia on December 18, 2005, seventy two 18^th and early 19^th century icons which were confiscated from smugglers in a large-scale operation carried in cooperation with the Cyprus special services.

The FSB director said during the returning of the icons at the patriarchal working residence, ‘On the threshold of the Nativity of Christ and the New Year, as well as our professional day, we are pleased to hand these icons over to your Holiness so that they may return to church’.

The Patriarch thanked the Federal Security Service and asked to convey his gratitude to the Cyprus special services who helped to return the shrines to Russia. This cooperation has brought good results in the struggle with the smuggling of church valuables, His Holiness noted.

Many generations prayed before these beneficial icons for decades and perhaps even centuries, the patriarch underlined. ‘Among the returned icons are both church and home icons, which used to bless the life of our ancestors’.