Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service has issued an extraordinary public denunciation of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, accusing the spiritual leader of destabilising Orthodox Christianity and acting with alleged backing from British intelligence.
In a statement published on its official website, the Foreign Intelligence Service described Patriarch Bartholomew as the “Constantinople Antichrist” and claimed he was seeking to “sow discord” within the Orthodox world by weakening the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate.
The agency alleged that the Ecumenical Patriarch had already “dismembered Orthodox Ukraine” and was now focused on the Baltic states, where it claims he is attempting to replace Russian-aligned Orthodox structures with churches “completely under the control of the Phanar,” the historic seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul.
According to the statement, this effort involves encouraging clergy and faithful in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to abandon Moscow-linked jurisdictions.
“Relying on ideological allies in the form of local nationalists and neo-Nazis, he is attempting to tear the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian Orthodox Churches away from the Moscow Patriarchate by luring their priests and flocks into the puppet religious structures artificially created by Constantinople,” the statement said.
The SVR further claimed that Patriarch Bartholomew intends to grant autocephaly to the unrecognised Montenegrin Orthodox Church, a move it said would be designed to undermine the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Concluding its remarks, the Russian intelligence agency used overtly theological language to condemn the Patriarch’s actions.
“Church circles note that Bartholomew is literally tearing apart the living body of the Church,” the statement said, likening him to “false prophets… who come in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”
Source: Ekathimerini
