Metropolitan of Piraeus: Russian Church loses high ground by unilateral move into Africa

Piraeus, Greece, January 25, 2022

The Orthodox Church urgently needs a pan-Orthodox council to deal with the expanding crisis in inter-Church relations, His Eminence Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus of the Orthodox Church of Greece says.

In fact, Met. Seraphim has been calling for a pan-Orthodox council since the beginning of the Ukrainian crisis, though his and others’ voices have simply been ignored.

While the Metropolitan has thus far stood with the Russian Church in the Ukrainian crisis, he condemns the recent creation of its African Exarchate. The Russian Church is right in its protest of the Constantinople’s anti-canonical invasion of Ukrainian Church territory, he says, but it loses that rightness with the “crime” it’s committing in Africa, Met. Seraphim he states.

Speaking on the 989 ALPHA RADIO station on Wednesday, Met. Seraphim cautioned that the Church “mustn’t get involved in the geopolitical and geostrategic games of the powerful players of the world,” reports Romfea.

The issue of the Russian Holy Synod creating an African Exarchate is very acute geopolitically and geostrategically, he said, and thus, “the Church must strictly observe the Divine and sacred canons and not get involved in such a dilemma and such a tag of war that leads to chaotic problems.”

There’s a huge issue in the Church now because of the violation of the canons, Met. Seraphim reiterated.

“A thousand years of Ecumenical Councils aren’t barred by any secular power. The Church is an eternal body; it’s not a body that adapts to geopolitical events and geopolitical realities,” he stated firmly when asked about the so-called Third Rome theory.

In 2018, Met. Seraphim also warned the Ukrainian government that it was playing a dangerous geopolitical game “between NATO and the Russian Federation,” with its desire to create a new church. “So understand that these things cannot be used as tools in the Church,” he warned.

Recalling that Constantinople gave autocephaly not to the Ukrainian Church, but to schismatics, he stressed that the fact of the Russian Church’s protest is justified, but not in the way they’re going about it now.

He also added that the Russian Church bears “enormous responsibility” for allowing Islam to “suffocate the Ecumenical Patriarchate.”

Further, “The Russian Church is currently committing a crime, acting alone, arbitrarily. While it has all the right on its side, it loses it with the moves it makes,” Met. Seraphim added, emphasizing that “our Church is a Church of order.”

The Church urgently needs a pan-Orthodox council now, and not just a Synaxis of Primates, but a council in which every Orthodox hierarch can participate, Met. Seraphim believes.

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