Paul Goble
Staunton,
November 12 – The Moscow Patriarchate is taking its battle against the Universal
Patriarchate over Ukrainian autocephaly to a new level: it is seeking to
organize Orthodox parishes in Turkey in order to set the stage for the creation
of a new patriarchate in the backyard of Patriarch Bartholemew.
When
Moscow spoke about an Orthodox Patriarchate in Turkey a few weeks ago, many
dismissed that as an absurdity because there are so few non-Muslims in that
country; but in fact, many of the oldest patriarchates in the world are in
places where there are very few Orthodox believers – and Moscow clearly plans
to add another one to it as part of its geo-religious game.
Metropolitan
Ilarion who heads the Moscow Patriarchate’s office for external relations says
that given the break with Constantinople Russia has “not other way out then to
send priests of the Russian Orthodox Church to Turkey” and organize Orthodox
parishes there (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=82345 and
mospat.ru/ru/2018/11/12/news166483/).
The Russian hierarch acknowledges
that there are only about 2,000 Orthodox believers among Turkish citizens, but
there are now “tens of thousands of Russian-speaking residents” of that
country, “not counting the constant flow of Russian tourists.” They want to know where they should go to
pray.
Up to now, Illarion says, Moscow
restrained from taking independent action out of deference to the Constantinople
Patriarch but now that the latter has violated the canonical territory of
Russia, Moscow no longer feels the need to hold back. Instead, it is sending
its own priests to Turkey to support the faithful.
Apparently, the first case of this took
place yesterday when a priest from Russia held an Orthodox service in the
church on the territory of the Russian consulate general in Istanbul. That
church had been jointly consecrated by the two patriarchs, Kirill and Bartholemew,
in 2009 (ahilla.ru/rpts-napravila-svyashhennika-v-turtsiyu-okormlyat-russkoyazychnyh-pravoslavnyh/).
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