Alexandria, Egypt, May 11, 2022
Photo: despotato.eu
Patriarch Theodoros of Alexandria issued an encyclical to the hierarchs of the Patriarchate of Alexandria on Monday, May 9, calling on them to take any action provided for by local law to protect their ecclesiastical property against the Russian Orthodox Church’s African Exarchate.
The Patriarch speaks of the “predatory and disrespectful” behavior of the Russian Church, and the “seizure of parish communities of indigenous Orthodox” through alleged bribes to local priests. The full letter is published by the Orthodoxia News Agency.
The letter refers to the “irregular and unacceptable attempt of the Russian Church to invade the African continent, which has undoubtedly been the canonical Jurisdiction of our ancient Patriarchate for centuries,” which began, he notes, after he recognized the “Orthodox Church of Ukraine.”
Despite initially showing strong support for the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Pat. Theodoros entered into communion with the Ukrainian schismatics in November 2019—a move that was protested by a number of African priests. Over the next few years, more than 100 African priests appealed to the Russian Church to be received into its jurisdiction. After Pat. Theodoros liturgically concelebrated with Epiphany Dumenko, the primate of the schismatic OCU, the Russian Holy Synod resolved to create its own African Exarchate, covering the whole of the Alexandrian Patriarchate’s African territory. Russian priests soon began traveling to Africa, receiving dozens of clergy and parishes into the Exarchate. The first two, Archpriests George Maximov and Andrei Novikov, were eventually declared defrocked by an Alexandrian spiritual court for their activity on Alexandrian canonical territory, though the Russian Church doesn’t recognize this decision.
In his new encyclical, Pat. Theodoros argues that the main goal of the “unbrotherly” Russians is to entice first the priests with financial promises, and then to convince the entire parish to move with its church into the Russian Exarchate.
The Alexandrian primate also emphasizes that the Russian Church is younger than his Patriarchate, which has known an “uninterrupted two-thousand-year martyrdom and activity.” He calls on all dioceses to use all legal means to protect both moveable and immoveable property, and to secure the return of all relevant properties.
As for clergy who left their Alexandrian dioceses to join the Russian Exarchate, they are to be suspended by their relevant hierarchs, “in hopes of their repentance,” until an ecclesiastical court can render a decision.
In February, Archbishop Ignatios of Antananarivo and North Madagascar warned his clergy that if they join the Russian Church, they will thereby give up their priesthood and place themselves outside the Church and in danger of hellfire.
Pat. Theodoros calls on his hierarchs to stand strong and remain loyal to the Orthodox faith and Tradition “with a pure sacrificial Orthodox spirit, boldness, and courage against the unhistorical, extortionary, anti-Christian—and therefore not blessed by the Lord—‘ecclesiastical’ (!) expansionism from the north.”
The Alexandrian primate concludes offering prayers for the indigenous clergy to be cleansed “from the treacherous behavior of spiritual apostasy ‘for 30 pieces of silver.’”
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