US administration is behind Phanar actions in Ukraine, – bishop of ROC

Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations, believes that the United States is interested in the weakening of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Taking advantage of the political confrontation in which Ukraine is drawn, Constantinople does everything to weaken the Russian Orthodox Church and tear off one of its inalienable parts from it, the hierarch said on the "Church and the World" television programme on the Rossiya 24 TV channel on September 14.

"America is interested in the weakening of the Russian Orthodox Church, because, as Zbigniew Brzezinski, well-known US political scientist in his day and consultant to several presidents, used to say, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, main force in the former Soviet Union, which US must destroy, is the Russian Orthodox Church. This is what is happening now," Metropolitan Hilarion stated.

It is "completely obvious" that the US administration is behind the actions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, "in fact, the US side is open about that," the hierarch of the ROC said.

"The US ambassador constantly offers consultations to Mr Poroshenko, another US ambassador often visits Patriarch Bartholomew, the connection is very close there," he said.

"Mean and treacherous policy of Constantinople injures not only the Russian Orthodox Church, but the whole Universal Orthodoxy," head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion notes.

However, currently there are no religious leaders, who could unite Ukrainians, in Ukraine, besides Metropolitan Onufry, Metropolitan Hilarion said.

Earlier the representative of the Russian delegation to the OSCE Oleg Shor accused Washington of interfering in church affairs in Ukraine and stressed that the United States should think about the consequences of a possible schism in world Orthodoxy.

In turn, the head of the ROC DECR, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, invited Phanar to think of the creation of a single local church in America.

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