A highly respected Australian church leader was a KGB spy, according to newly released Russian intelligence archives.

Archbishop Aghan Baliozian, Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of Australia and New Zealand, was listed as a KGB agent, codenamed "Zorik" in the papers of former KGB archivist and defector Vasili Mitrokhin, which were released by the UK's Churchill College Archive last month.

Born in Syria in 1946, the late Archbishop Baliozian arrived in Australia in 1975 to serve as Vicar General of the diocese of the Armenian Church before being appointed as Primate of Australia and New Zealand in 1982.

A highly respected religious leader and a well-known figure in Chatswood, Sydney, Archbishop Baliozian was strongly committed to ecumenism, working for cooperation and greater unity between Christian churches.

He was the first president of the National Council of Churches in Australia from 1994 to 1997 and president of the NSW Ecumenical Council from 2005 to 2007. He represented the Armenian Church at the World Council of Churches.