21.12.2022, Moscow.
In April 1941, Pope Pius XII gathered 400 members of the Jesuit Order, and he urged them to intensify their activity on the east, a source of the foreign intelligence of the USSR reported in May 1941, according to a secret report from the archive of the Foreign Intelligence Service (Russian: SVR) published on the Presidential Library’s website on December 20.
“On Wednesday, April 23, a secret meeting of 400 Jesuits with the Pope took place; the Pope urged them to intensify their activity on the east,” a code telegram dated May 3, 1941 said.
The report was addressed to “Viktor,” the call sign of the director of foreign intelligence of the Soviet Union in 1939-1946 Pavel Fitin.
“Jesuits located in the Baltic region, West Ukraine, and Belarus were instructed to start concentrating closer to the border, because Germany’s offensive against the USSR was expected soon after the Greek problem is resolved,” the asset of the foreign intelligence reported.
The code telegram was published along with other documents of the SVR archive on the website of the Yeltsin Presidential Library on the 102nd anniversary of the Service.
The SVR traces its history back to the Foreign Department of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-Revolution and Sabotage established on December 20, 1920.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
