Ecumenical Patriarch: The Church of Russia has papal claims, not the Ecumenical Patriarchate

(source: Orthodox Times) The Ecumenical Patriarch stressed that the Church of Constantinople gave a helping hand to Russia to solve the Ukrainian issue, but the efforts did not work, due to the fault of the Russian side, which does not admit it.

“The leadership of the Church of Moscow is trying to impose a new ecclesiology which is overthrowing the ecclesiastical order on the basis of new data. But he must understand that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is the only guarantee for the unity of Orthodoxy. Without the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Orthodoxy will fall into the vortex of nationalisms, into the introversion of self-sufficiency, into the contempt of the modern world, ” he said.

He added that the Church of Russia continues to accuse the Ecumenical Patriarchate of being responsible for the tensions in Orthodox relations, while “it is Russia who creates the tensions, the one who entered the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Alexandria uncanonically, tarnishing the image of Orthodoxy in the eyes of the Christian world.”