Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I declared that he knew everything about the "black propaganda of Moscow" directed against world Orthodoxy and the future creation of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. But at the same time he expressed confidence that sooner or later the ROC would have to agree with the decisions of the Ecumenical Patriarch, because she has no other choice.. In Moscow they hardly counted on such a tough statement of the Ecumenical Patriarch. The leaders of Russia - and in this the patriarch Kirill is no different from any Putin or Medvedev - have become accustomed to the world responding to any of their boorish tricks with "serious concern" and "the need for dialogue" with hooligans in uniform or ryasas - and often in uniform and ryacha at the same time, so the Russians have taken. And in the literal sense of the word, the ROC has nothing to answer these words.. Igor Yakimchuk, secretary of the department for external church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, has already managed to declare that the ROC is not obliged to agree with the decisions of the Ecumenical Throne simply because of the attention that the Byzantine Empire is long gone, and Istanbul is not even the capital of Turkey. Simply put, as Comrade Stalin asked there, “how many divisions does your father have?”. But comrade Stalin, by the way, was the same seminarian shirker as comrade Yakimchuk. For a century, the mentality of the pupils of the Russian Orthodox Church - that of Stalin, that of Yakimchuk - did not change much. They still think about divisions, not canons. And the canons just assume what the Ecumenical Patriarch said: will have to admit. Sooner or later. Here you need to make a reservation: you have to admit if you want to stay Orthodox.

The Russian Church, of course, has another choice - to renounce Orthodoxy, become a schismatic sect or simply a non-Orthodox confession.. But then she will be interested in the Ecumenical throne and other Orthodox churches, except from the point of view of ecumenical dialogue, as Catholics or Protestants are now interested in.. Yes, this is a very simple and clear choice for the Russians: to recognize the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church means to remain Orthodox, to refuse such recognition means to stop them being. Original.