Fictitious scenarios, fake news: Ecumenical Patriarchate responds to SVR's statement

The text of the document was published on Facebook by Archimandrite Cyril (Hovorun).

"The Mother Church of Constantinople, which is also the Mother Church of the Russian Church, expresses its deep regret over the recent Russian attacks on His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, which were carried out by the country's state authorities.

Since 2018, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate granted autocephalous status to the Church of Ukraine, the Mother Church has refrained from commenting on the numerous attacks that have come from various ecclesiastical and political sources in Russia. It continues to uphold this position today.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate emphasizes in its statement that fictitious scenarios, false news, insults, and fabricated information from various propagandists will not compel it to cease its ministry and universal mission," reads the statement of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

As reported previously, on January 12, the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation (SVR) referred to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as "the antichrist in a cassock." The patriarch has also been accused, in a manner typical of Russian rhetoric, of "dismembering Orthodox Ukraine" and of engaging in "schismatic activity" within the Orthodox Church, particularly in the Baltic states."