Spiritual Leader Among Oriental Orthodox Christians speaking Friday before New York audiences, defending a 2019 decision to recognize Ukraine’s independent churches, he accused the Russian Orthodox of “rending” and “rending support.” Ukraine’s invasion. ”
Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, made his remarks before the Council of Foreign Relations during the suspension of a 12-day visit to the United States. It also included meetings with President Donald Trump and other political leaders.
Bartholomew has long been critical of his support for the Russian Orthodox Church and his full-scale invasion in 2022.
He repeated these criticisms on Friday, saying that the Russian church supported “the murder of orthodox Christians by the Putin regime.” Russia and Ukraine are both majority countries.
Even before the invasion, the Russian Orthodox Church had declared in 2018 that there would be a rest between communion and Constantinople. That was when Bartholomew prepared the following year, preparing to recognize the Orthodox Church in Ukraine as independent. The Moscow Church claims that Ukraine is part of the church’s territory, but Bartholomew has argued for jurisdiction to recognize an independent church.
On Friday, Bartholomew said the Moscow church was opposed to Orthodox teaching in promoting the “Russian World” ideology that views Russia as a spiritual guardian of a wider territory, including Ukraine.
Moscow’s patriarch Kirill defended the war, saying that Russian war dead were forgiven for guilt, presided over a council that called the invasion “holy war” and believed they had “fallen into Satanism.”
Ukrainians are “no longer subject to a church that compromised themselves,” Bartholomew said. “They have the freedom of conscience they wanted.”
However, the Russian Church merely recognizes the legitimacy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, historically under the authority of the Moscow Church. The latter tried to distance themselves from Moscow as they support the invasion, but Ukrainian authorities are not sure it is taking a clean break You are about to ban it that.
Bartholomew’s broad speech Friday called for the international community to work to bring peace The ongoing Israeli Hama War And related conflicts, and he condemned the rise of online extremism and political violence. He praised the American constitutional system of checks and balance, but urged the exclusion of faith from the public square by citing George Washington’s quote, “Religion and Morality are essential to a good government.”
Bartholomew is first considered among the equality of orthodox patriarchs, but he lacks the power of the Catholic pope. The jurisdiction of each orthodox, organized primarily along the national line, governs itself, sharing beliefs, sacraments, and so on.
Bartholomew is based in the ancient Byzantine capital, now known as Istanbul, and he leads a small orthodox flock to almost Muslim turkeys. He also oversees overseas jurisdictions, particularly the Orthodox Archdiocese of Greece.
In contrast, Kirill oversees the world’s largest Eastern Orthodox jurisdiction, with around 100 million people in Russia alone, according to a 2017 global survey by the Pew Research Center. The Moscow Church also asserts jurisdiction over several churches in other countries. US.
Kirill and Russian political leaders justified the invasion by claiming that Ukraine is part of the “Russian world” and citing the church’s historical grievances over the allegations. Western invasion. Russian President Vladimir Putin He is accused of war crimes International Criminal Court.
Bartholomew will be awarded the prestigious Templeton Award in New York on September 24th in honor of his candid work on behalf of the global environment.
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