Czech police have detained Orthodox Bishop Hilarion — a senior Russian cleric whose secular name is Grigory Alfeyev — after four containers of a suspicious white substance were found in his vehicle on a highway between Karlovy Vary (a western Czech spa town with a sizeable Russian diaspora) and Prague. The 60-year-old bishop, who heads the Russian Orthodox Church's congregation in the area, denied any link to illegal narcotics, and his defence team said police offered no clear reason for stopping the car and are demanding independent forensic analysis. Russia's Foreign Ministry condemned the detention as an "orchestrated provocation" and summoned the Czech diplomatic representative in Moscow to lodge a formal protest, though Czech authorities confirmed only that a man had been detained following an anonymous tip-off and that no charges had yet been filed.