The letter of recognition of the Church of Greece to the Church of Ukraine was characterized a sad example for the other Orthodox Churches, by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk.
“The Russian Church hopes that no other local Orthodox Church will follow the sad example of the Church of Greece,” the chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR) said in a speech at Wednesday’s plenary session of the Christian Inter-Confessional Advisory Committee.
He reiterated the dependency of the Greek Church to the Phanar, saying that “We regret that the Church of Greece made such a decision, but we understand that it is not independent, half of its hierarchs being hierarchs of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. This Church does not have its own foreign policy, so it always follows the Patriarch of Constantinople.”