The Ecumenical Patriarchate has issued a statement responding to Moscow’s fierce attack against Bartholomew, describing it as “fake news, insults and fabricated information by propagandists,” while noting that – as in the past, in similar cases – it chooses not to make any comment.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate’s statement
“The Mother Church of Constantinople – Mother of the Russian Church itself – expresses its deepest sorrow for the new Russian attack against the person of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, which this time was launched by state services of the country. Since 2018, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate decided to grant autocephalous status to the Church of Ukraine, the Mother Church has avoided commenting on the countless similar attacks that came from either ecclesiastical or political centers and figures in Russia. It does the same today.
“The fantastical scenarios, fake news, insults and fabricated information of all kinds by propagandists do not discourage the Ecumenical Patriarchate from continuing its ministry and ecumenical mission.”
Moscow’s attack on Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew: “He has nationalist and neo-Nazi allies, dissolving the body of the Church”
It should be recalled that yesterday, the press office of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) launched an attack on Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, accusing him over his Ukraine policy, while also claiming he is supported by a Western intelligence service. As TASS reports, the SVR claims in a statement that British intelligence services actively support Bartholomew’s activities.
The report reflects the dispute that has erupted for years between Constantinople and the Moscow Patriarchate regarding the autocephaly granted to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a move that infuriated Moscow. “British intelligence services actively support him, fueling Russophobic sentiments in European countries,” the SVR stated, adding that Bartholomew “found common ground with Baltic state authorities in an attempt to sow discord in the Russian Orthodox world.”
“The Ecumenical Patriarch relies on his ideological allies, represented by local nationalists and neo-Nazis, in an attempt to detach the Orthodox Churches of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from the Moscow Patriarchate, dragging their priests and faithful into artificial religious structures created by Constantinople.”
Meanwhile, the press office noted that the Ecumenical Patriarch intends to grant autocephaly to the unrecognized Orthodox Church of Montenegro in order to strike at the Serbian Orthodox Church. They even attribute to Bartholomew an “aggressive disposition” that “is not limited to Ukraine and the Baltic countries.”
They speak of a “cunning spirit” on the Patriarch’s part that “is gradually spreading to Eastern European countries. In order to launch a campaign of suppression against the ‘particularly persistent’ Serbian Orthodox Church, he intends to grant autocephaly to the unrecognized Orthodox Church of Montenegro,” the SVR emphasized.
