A journalist from News.ru (Russia) asked the Patriarchate of Alexandria the following question: “The Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church is registered in Kenya. This was only known during the visit of His All-Holiness the Patriarch of Alexandria to Kenya. How does the Patriarchate of Alexandria understand the activities of the Russian Church in Kenya? As well as the activities of the Russian Church in Africa in general. How does the Patriarchate of Alexandria feel about this? Thank you.
The answer given is as follows:
“The Patriarchate of Moscow, driven by highly authoritarian tendencies of domination over the whole of Orthodoxy, wishing to rule monarchically and drag all Orthodoxy under its authority, abolishing the entire theological and canonical tradition of the Orthodox Church, appeared vengefully in Africa and entered it unconsciously, thief in the night, defying the centuries-old ecclesiastical institutions and the Sacred Canons of the Church. This primarily reveals its own unhealthy spiritual course and its ecclesiological deviation from Orthodox traditions.
The action of the Patriarchate of Moscow outside the limits of its ecclesiastical jurisdiction injures our beloved, the unanimous and immaculate of our Orthodox faith, and certainly contributes negatively to the ridicule of Orthodoxy. Of course, the Patriarchate of Moscow also bent on its traumatic past and highly selfish attitudes of other times embraces the State and the political aspirations of the respective orders of the Russian state, which creates at all costs spheres of influence in Africa, with results always very painful for the Russian Orthodox people, as history teaches.
The Patriarchate of Alexandria will continue to serve the whole of Africa, where the Apostolic Legacy, the Sacred Canons, and History have vowed it, always guided by the suffering African man and with the unshakable faith that the work of Annunciation and deafness of the peoples will not cease because it has Apostolic roots, is not an ephemeral, egocentric or authoritarian ecclesiastical-political game. For the Alexandrian Church, the African brother is a living and sacred image of God and not a being for use, exploitation, and complex self-affirmation.