Extreme challenge by Moscow: It wants to establish an exarchate in Turkey

The Russian Orthodox Church seems to be determined to create tension that will reach even the rift by directly challenging and challenging the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Just a few days after the decision of the Moscow Patriarchate to establish a “Russian Exarchate in Africa,” an action which caused the grief of Patriarch Theodore of Alexandria, the Moscow Patriarchate does not preclude the possibility of establishing a “Russian Exarchate in Turkey,” as reported by ertnews.gr.

In an interview with Ria Novosti, the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and chairman of the Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion said: “The Russian Orthodox Church cannot refuse to nurture the Orthodox in Turkey.”

Referring to the recent establishment of a “Russian Exarchate in Africa”, Metropolitan Hilarion justified it by saying: “In 2019, Theodore II, Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, recognized the schismatic Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Speaking about the consequences of this decision, the Russian Orthodox Church had noted that “it could affect the care of our faithful compatriots in Africa, who live in the canonical territory of the Patriarchate of Alexandria.”

At the end of December 2021, the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church announced the decision to establish the Patriarchal Exarchate in Africa.

For the umpteenth time, Metropolitan Hilarion personally attacked Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, saying: “We could not say no to the clergymen of the Patriarchate of Alexandria who realized the false position of their Patriarch, and accept them in the corral of the church of the Patriarchate of Constantinople as well as in the pastoral in conditions in which the Patriarch of Constantinople took part in the schism.”

Source: orthodoxtimes.com