The charity wing of the Russian Orthodox Church has had its emails hacked, according to a pro-Ukraine social media network.
"#OpRussia: Hackers leaked 15GB of data stolen from the Russian Orthodox Church's charitable wing & released roughly 57,500 emails via #DDoSecrets," Anonymous TV's Twitter account reported Friday night.
"#DDoSecrets noted that due to the nature of the data, at this time it is only being offered to journalists & researchers. #Anonymous."
The hacking of a charity account could release sensitive financial and private information of donors – or potentially expose Ukraine sympathizers to retaliation by the Kremlin.
"What secrets can benefactors have? All over the world it is accepted that such funds and structures operate openly and publish the structures of both their income and their expenses," deacon Andrei Kuraev wrote on an internet blog. "Or is the patriarchate here the main beneficiary?"
This is not the first time churches have been the target of hacking in the decades-long standoff between Ukraine and Russia, as Ukraine has sought religious independence from its former Soviet Union roots.
"Kyiv is Jerusalem for the Russian Orthodox people," Daniel Payne, a researcher on the board of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor University in Texas, told the AP in 2018. "That's where the sacred relics, monasteries, churches are.
"It's sacred to the people, and to Russian identity."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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