By Efi Efthimiou
It may be more than two weeks since Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew spoke in New York during his US tour, in which more or less said that he is “indifferent” to the fact that the Patriarchate of Moscow does not commemorate him, however, the Russian Church does not seem willing to let it go.
The Ecumenical Patriarch, during his speech at an event with Greek expatriates, referred to the stance taken by the Moscow Patriarchate after the granting of autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine.
He spoke of Moscow’s ignorant attitude towards the Mother Church. “We are the mother church because we gave them Christianity. We enlightened them. We gave them the Cyrillic alphabet through which we wanted to help them cultivate their culture. And they, as we say in the liturgical language, they turned their back on the benefactor.”, Bartholomew had characteristically stated, adding that” the Moscow Patriarchate got angry and cut off communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate.” They struck the name off the diptychs and they do not commemorate me. Couldn’t care less about it (that they do not commemorate me)”.
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk in his statements on the show “The Church and the World” of the television network “Russia 24”, referred to this incident.
He characteristically commented that the Ecumenical Patriarchate, “Constantinople”, as he specifically pointed out, was the one from which Russia received the Orthodox faith, not from the “Patriarch of Constantinople”, from whom we did not receive the Orthodox faith either, nor anything else good but the schism which he created in the canonical territory of our Church”.
He even added that his indifference to the Russian Church should have become apparent earlier, “but in the past, he hid it, while now he does not even hide it.”
Passing on the counterattack, Metropolitan Hilarion stated that the Ecumenical Patriarch “calls himself a big brother. Let it be for those churches that accepted the Autochephaly of Ukraine. Orthodox”We do not need a big brother who declares his indifference for us, the sacred rules and Orthodox unity.”
