Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) hopes that the ultimate split of Orthodoxy will not take place and “unity in our common Orthodox family will be restored.”

The grave consequences of the non-canonical actions of Constantinople are already obvious to everyone, and if it does not change its behavior, the split will be even deeper. The head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, said this in an interview with the Serbian newspaper Novosti, published on January 31, 2021.

Answering the question whether the behavior of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who claims to be the “Eastern Pope”, can lead to the division of Orthodoxy into two trajectories – Constantinople and Moscow, the hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church stressed the line would be drawn between those who are faithful to the canons and those who violate them.

“Indeed, in recent years, Patriarch Bartholomew has not acted as a coordinator in relations between the Orthodox, as he once called himself. He acts as if all power belongs to him and he is not accountable to anyone, he acts as the head of the Church of Christ. Such a tendency to rule does not correspond to Orthodox doctrine. The grave consequences of the non-canonical actions of Constantinople in relation to Orthodoxy are already obvious for everyone, and if he does not change his behavior, the split will be even deeper. The dividing line runs neither between Constantinople and Moscow nor between Greeks and Slavs. It divides hierarchs and believers into those who are faithful to the canons and those who violate them,” said Metropolitan Hilarion.

Summing up, the hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church expressed the hope that “the ultimate split of Orthodoxy will not occur and that unity in our common Orthodox family will be restored.”

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that, according to Metropolitan Hilarion, Patriarch Bartholomew promised not to interfere in Ukraine but played foul.