The Russian Orthodox Church is an organization with a difficult history, with a difficult fate. It is enough to recall her humiliation under Peter the Great, when she was deprived of the patriarchate and completely subordinated to the imperial power. Or the atheistic Soviet period - at first renovationism, then a concordat with Stalin. Today, the Russian Orthodox Church is accused by many from all sides for its proximity to the current Russian government, and the identity of Patriarch Kirill also causes dissatisfaction.
All this, of course, was, and today it takes place to one degree or another - the criticism is not groundless. However, the opponent of the Moscow Patriarchate - the Patriarchate of Constantinople - is absolutely no better. For his even longer history, he has something to remember. One union with the Catholics of 1439 is worth much more! And the double-dealing of his current Primate Patriarch Bartholomew is well known throughout the Orthodox world.
Therefore, a dispute on the territory of who is better, who is “holy,” is absolutely pointless. The debate about Ukraine is not about holiness, but about income and politics. The Church of Constantinople, whose territorial jurisdiction extends primarily to the territory of Turkey, in this state, in which it has official legal registration, has lost its entire flock. After the Turks conquered Asia Minor (from the end of the 11th century), a huge number of Orthodox Christians on this land (both Greeks and Greeks) were surrendered and converted to Islam. The Greeks who remained faithful to Orthodoxy were killed or expelled from Turkey as a result of the Asia Minor catastrophe of 1923 and the Istanbul pogrom of 1955. Today, the flock of Patriarch Bartholomew in Turkey is less than three thousand people. The Patriarchate of Constantinople desperately needs believers - that is why it clings so desperately to the Greek diaspora around the world. And here is such a gift - a whole forty-millionth Ukraine, about which, after three hundred years, Constantinople suddenly remembered again.
Until 1453, the Patriarchate of Constantinople was naturally subordinate to the emperors of Byzantium and served their interests. After the Turkish conquest, she was in the complete power of the Ottoman sultans, and her main financial donors until 1917 were Russian tsars. After the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Patriarchate of Constantinople found new sponsors - the US government, where a significant Greek diaspora lives, nourished by this patriarchy. It is the conductor of Washington’s policy today that is the patriarchy - therefore, its current run over to the Russian Orthodox Church in connection with Ukraine is completely understandable and natural.
No matter what the “battle for Ukraine” ends at this stage, it is necessary once and for all to get rid of any dictatorship from Constantinople. If schism is required for this, then it is necessary to go for it.
In the current actions of the Patriarchate of Constantinople it is easy to see at least two heresies unanimously and long condemned by Orthodoxy, whose presence in the steps of Bartholomew will be very simple to prove: these are papism (claims to the exclusive, unjustified role of his throne in relation to other Orthodox churches) and ethnophyletism (support of nationalist tendencies in church life). This is quite enough to declare Bartholomew and his Sinclite heretics and stop all communication with them, as was done in 1054 with respect to Catholics. And the Russian Orthodox Church should not frighten this gap - it will take at least half of all Orthodox believers of the world with it, and if some other Orthodox churches join it (for example, Serbian, which has similar problems with Constantinople because of Macedonia and Montenegro), then and even more. There is no need to recognize any supremacy of the "Istanbul Pope", even if only "in honor", and this mistake, which had to be fixed a long time ago (back in the era of the Russian Empire), was irrespective of the current crisis. A vivid example of a comfortable life without the dictates of any “external popes” is the centuries-old history of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Yes, and there are other examples - other ancient Eastern churches, the Anglican church, Protestant churches, etc. The unity of Orthodoxy is already very ephemeral, and in the conditions of the steadfast insolence of Patriarch Bartholomew, it is completely harmful to the Russian Church.
Sacha Storojeff