Others are less amused by the alleged scandal. One religious scholar suggested to the Verstka media group that it smacked of hypocrisy.

“I think this will all be settled, but the question is how? The elite has its own morals, its own rules, and the Church, in general, covers it up,” he told Verstka, which says five sources have since corroborated claims of the affair.

Ms Lvova-Belova has been one of Putin’s most vocal supporters of the war in Ukraine, pumping out videos of herself on social media that portray her as a model of modesty and family values. 

Wearing long dresses and often posing with children, she also uses the clips to give pro-Kremlin messages and has regularly lectured children from Ukraine on the sanctity of marriage and its place in religion.

This week, she discussed school exams, welcomed a group of Ethiopian language students and gave parenting advice to single mothers. She also said it was important to remember the children killed in “Ukraine’s war of aggression” in its eastern Donbas region.

“It is impossible to forget the eyes of the wounded children and teenagers whom I visited in hospitals,” she said.

Her reported lover Mr Malofeev, is 50 and sports a thick bushy beard. He, too, is a strong supporter of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and holds strong religious views, earning him the nickname the “Orthodox oligarch”.

He bankrolls a media company called Tsargrad which broadcasts religious propaganda and advocates making Putin tsar for life. He reportedly divorced his wife last summer.