The head of the former KGB returned to the Russian Orthodox Church on Monday 12 icons, mainly from the 16th century, that were stolen from the church over the last three or four years. "It is not a gift but the return of the icons to their rightful owner," said Sergei Stepashin, director of the Federal Counterintelligence Service, the successor to the KGB, as he gave the icons to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexy II, at a short solemn ceremony in Svyato-Danilov monastery, the official residence of the patriarch. Alexy II thanked the service, known by its acronym FSK, and Stepashin personally, and said that the icons belonged not only to the church but also to the entire country. The event marked the first such public handing over of church property by the agency, but the church and the KGB have long had close relations with many priests serving as informers for the agency. Andrei Gavrilov, a spokesman for the FSK, said by telephone that the icons had been stolen from several Russian churches and monasteries. "All icons represent fine arts and are national property," Gavrilov said, adding that most of them had been painted in the 16th century and one under the personal order of Ivan the Terrible. Gavrilov said a group of smugglers had planned to take the icons to Germany through the Baltic states but had been detained in May 1993 on the border between Russia and Lithuania. He said after the incident had been investigated the leadership of the FSK had decided to hand back the icons to the church. There was also an ancient iconostasis, "The Tsar's Gate," among the stolen art works. It had been sawed up into six pieces by the smugglers to avoid detection while smuggling it abroad, so restoration of this group of icons will take considerable time, Gavrilov said. Valery Kondrashov, head of the cossack guard at the patriarch's monastery, said: "Usually confiscated icons are given to the museums and different foundations. But now they will be returned to their historical owners -- to the Orthodox monasteries and churches."
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