Mario Brini (11 May 1908 – 9 December 1995) was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who worked in the diplomat in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See and in the Roman Curia.
During the Second World War, Brini worked as the resident expert on the Soviet Union for the Secretariat of State.
During the chaos that surrounded the Liberation of Rome in 1944, Alexander Kurtna, an Estonian national who worked from 1940-1944 as a translator at the Congregation for the Eastern Churches while spying for both Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin's NKVD, turned the tables on his SS handler, Herbert Kappler, by stealing the top secret Sicherheitsdienst codebooks from Kappler's office.
[4] He was named a titular archbishop on 14 October 1961[5] and received his episcopal consecration from Cardinal Amleto Cicognani on 28 January 1962.
[7] On 2 October 1965, Pope Paul VI named him Secretary (Assessore) of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.