By Elder Metropolitan Apostolos of Derkoi
I read with disgust in the media the anti-church and anti-Greek statements of representatives of the Russian presence in Ukraine and with holy indignation, I answer:
Put your hands and mouth down from the Successor of those who made you Christians!
You owe everything you are to what you so disparagingly call: Constantinople! For us, it is the one City that has stood here for centuries now and only benefits all of you who celebrate the thousand, one thousand, and thirty-three years of your Christianity, without mentioning anywhere who was the one who baptized you and gave you what you boast you have.
We have given you light, you are returning it to us in darkness! We gave you grace; you give us ungratefulness! We brought you culture, you insult us!
Which Church are you talking about? For a modern Protestantism that you profess? Sit seriously in positions of humiliation and apprenticeship, because even if on earth you think you have conquered the whole world, the indignation of the Ecumenical, Local, and other Synod Fathers, who established and interpreted the unique responsibilities of Constantinople, but also the Justice of God they intervene even then… “sinners where we go”.
You are indulgently unacceptable! Put your hands down from the Ecumenical Patriarch! Learn to teach from those who converted you to Christianity and not to think that you are teaching.
Finally stop your malice, hatred, and arrogance.
Good enlightenment!
