by Heta Hurskainen | български | ქართული | ελληνικά | Română | Русский | Српски

With its autonomous church in Ukraine, the Moscow Patriarchate could not accept the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s actions to grant autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in Ukraine (OCU) in 2018–2019. The Moscow Patriarchate severed its relationships with Constantinople and other primates who recognized the OCU and searched for ways to emphasize conciliarity within Orthodoxy while at the same time ignoring the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s position. The decision to establish the Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa at the turn of 2022 was a nonaccidental result of this development.

The Moscow Patriarchate had already cut ties with Constantinople in 2018 before the tomos was handed to the OCU in January 2019. By October 2018, the entire Constantinople Patriarchate was considered tainted. The Moscow Patriarchate referred to Constantinople as schismatic, stopped mentioning Patriarch Bartholomew’s name in the liturgy, and dissolved the eucharistic connection with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. For the Moscow Patriarchate, finding a new way to cooperate within global Orthodoxy was essential.