Ecumenical Patriarch accuses ROC of supporting murders of Orthodox Ukrainians
20 September 2025 04:59
During a speech at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew condemned the actions of the Russian Orthodox Church, which blessed the killing of Ukrainians, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports
According to the website of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew sharply criticized the Russian Orthodox Church for supporting the war in Ukraine and called Moscow’s actions “heresy” that splits the Orthodox world.
“This heretical behavior continues. The emphasis on national or ethnic heritage has led to the fragmentation of our universal family, and we see this most brutally today in Russia’s war against Ukraine. This illegal war has already cost more than a million lives – a huge and completely unnecessary tragedy,” said Bartholomew.
According to him, the tragedy also has a spiritual dimension, because the Russian Orthodox Church openly supported the invasion and murder of Orthodox Ukrainians in the interests of the imperial doctrine of the “Russian world.”
“If you overlay a map of the current Moscow Patriarchate on the silhouette of the former Soviet empire, you will see an almost complete coincidence,” he said.
The Ecumenical Patriarch reminded that in 2019, Constantinople granted autocephaly to Ukrainians:
“The Ukrainian people have long sought freedom of conscience after more than seven decades of oppression in the USSR. Today they no longer obey the church, which has compromised itself by cooperating with the state.”
