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Former KGB employee Mikhail Lennikov, who is scheduled to be deported to Russia Wednesday, June 3, 2009, poses for a photograph on Tuesday June 2, 2009 at First Lutheran Church where he sought refuge in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. AP VANCOUVER, British Columbia - A former KGB employee facing deportation from Canada has taken refuge in a church to avoid being sent back to Russia.

Mikhail Lennikov accepted an offer of sanctuary from the First Lutheran Church in Vancouver to avoid being deported on Wednesday.

Canadian immigration officials ordered Lennikov in 2002 saying there were reasonable grounds to believe he engaged in acts of espionage or subversion against a democratic government during his tenure at the KGB.

A Federal Court on Monday refused to put off his deportation on compassionate and humanitarian grounds.

Lennikov arrived in Canada in 1997. He says he's doing whatever it takes to ensure he, wife Irina and teenage son Dmitri aren't split up. His wife and son have been allowed to stay.

"If I fly back to Russia, I won't be able to see my family again," he said.

Lennikov, 48, said he was up front about his past at the KGB since his arrival in Canada and even gave Canada's spy agency a debriefing on the KGB.

He said he was pressured into joining the KGB as a young man, and did administrative work in the late 1980s before quitting.

He said he feared he might face stiff punishment if forced to return to Russia.

"They still see me as a person who betrayed the organization," he said.

Lennikov thanked the church for taking him in and expressed hope that even a few extra days in Canada might be enough to sway those who control his fate.

Richard Hergesheimer, Lennikov's pastor, said the decision to offer a member of his congregation sanctuary was an easy one to make.

"We have worked with the family and suffered with them through all their ups and downs and it was clear that sanctuary might have to be an option, a last resort," he said.

In July 2004, a Canada Border Services Agency report found Lennikov was should not be permitted to stay in Canada because of his KGB past, and in 2006 an Immigration and Refugee Board agreed. He was ordered deported.