The state security chief who dismantled the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church by force, then ran Soviet foreign intelligence in late Stalinism
In 1947, Khrushchev and Savchenko petitioned Stalin and Abakumov for permission to kill Bishop Romzha, accusing him of collaborating with 'secret emissaries of the Vatican' and the Ukrainian nationalist underground; Romzha was subsequently killed by a poison injection.
A Soviet state security officer who spent 17 years in border troops before becoming People's Commissar (1943–1946) and then Minister (1946–1949) of State Security for Ukraine. He personally directed the March 1946 'Synod of Lviv,' which forcibly merged the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church into the Russian Orthodox Church, and in 1947, together with Nikita Khrushchev, secured Stalin's approval for the assassination of Bishop Theodore Romzha of Mukachevo. Recalled to Moscow in 1949, he rose to head the First Chief Directorate (foreign intelligence) of the MGB as deputy minister, only to be removed after Beria's purge in 1953 and forced into retirement in 1955 for 'service inadequacy.'
Career Timeline
- 1921Joined Cheka as operative in Nikolaev Governorate Special Department
- 1922–193917 years in border troops as operative, staff officer, and instructor; by 1939, chief of 5th Section and deputy head of NKVD Border Troops, Ukrainian SSR
- 1941Deputy People's Commissar of State Security, Ukrainian SSR
- 1941–1943Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Ukraine; effectively commanded NKVD Ukraine after Commissar Sergienko abandoned his post near Kiev
- 1943–1946People's Commissar of State Security, Ukrainian SSR
- 1946–1949Minister of State Security, Ukrainian SSR; orchestrated the 1946 Lviv Synod forcibly merging the Greek Catholic Church into Russian Orthodoxy
- 1949–1951First Deputy Chairman, Committee of Information at USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs — de facto head of all Soviet foreign intelligence
- 1951–1953Head of First Chief Directorate (foreign intelligence) and Deputy Minister of State Security, MGB USSR
- 1953Demoted after Beria's arrest to deputy head of MVD Second Chief Directorate, then dismissed
- 1955Dismissed from service for 'service inadequacy'