“The Russian Orthodox Church is not an example to follow and I am sorry to say that,” said today Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Cyprus.
Speaking at the website ageliaforos.com, the Archbishop of Cyprus commented on the interview of Metropolitan Hilarion with the newspaper “Kathimerini” a few days ago.
Metropolitan Hilarion had blatantly accused the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Church of Cyprus of the Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
The Archbishop of Cyprus, on his part, pointed out pithily that “the holy brother is in pain there and he is interested there. I also had a different position because I did not know the full truth. When I found out the truth, I took the current position. The Ecumenical Patriarchate granted Kyiv and Ukraine for administration.”
The church issue of Ukraine would be discussed at the Holy and Great Synod of Crete in 2016, “but the Patriarch of Moscow did not want it, he tried to remove the issue from the agenda of the Synod and promised to participate in it. In the end, he did not attend the Synod of Crete and influenced those who could not to attend it,” said Archbishop Chrysostomos.
Therefore, the primate of the Church of Cyprus stressed, “it was not us, it was the Moscow Patriarchate that does not think correctly nor does it contribute to the unity of Orthodoxy. We want the Orthodox Church to stand high, to be united and to be an example to follow.
The Russian Orthodox Church is not an example to follow and I am sorry to say that,” he said.
“Even if we accept that the Russian Orthodox Church, as Metropolitan Hilarion claimed, has lived a life of thousand years, we, the Senior Patriarchates and the Church of Cyprus, have a life of two thousand years,” said the Archbishop.
“This is why they should be consulted by us. The Russian Orthodox Church took Orthodoxy away from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which today does not respect. For all the junior local Orthodox Churches, the Ecumenical Patriarchate is the Mother Church”, concluded Archbishop Chrysostomos.
