On July 22, 2021, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Israel Anatoly Viktorov met with Patriarch Theophilos III of the holy city of Jerusalem and all Palestine at the patriarchal residence in Jerusalem.
"The parties discussed issues of an ecclesiastical and diplomatic nature that represent mutual interest," the official website of the Department of Foreign Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church notes.
The meeting was attended by Archimandrite Alexander (Elisov), head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem and member of the IOPS Council, as well as hieromonk Afanasy (Bukin), treasurer of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission.
Spiritual Front of Ukraine has noted that the IOPS — the so-called Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society, based in Jerusalem, is headed by ex-director of the FSB of the Russian Federation Sergey Stepashin.
In mid-June 2021, Russian ambassador Viktorov and FSB envoys already met with the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Thereafter, Russian experts again started talking about Amman 2.0
Earlier, FSB envoys took part in the celebration of the day of the angel of Jerusalem Patriarch Theophilus III.
As RISU has reported, the formal initiator of the meeting in Amman in November 2019 was Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem. He made the proposal bypassing Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, after meeting with Kirill and Putin, when he received an award from the Russian "foundation for the unity of Orthodox peoples". The Russian Orthodox Church proposed this as an initiative of Jerusalem. But in fact, it was Moscow that promoted the idea. They wanted to create a new platform for condemning the actions of Constantinople in Ukraine.
Orthodoxy is represented by 15 autocephalous churches. Four of them (not counting the OCU) made it clear that they would not go to the meeting of the Russian Orthodox Church in Amman. These are the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Archbishop of Alexandria, Cyprus and Greece, heads of the four largest churches. The Russian Orthodox Church broke off relations with Constantinople, Greece and Alexandria because of the recognition of the OCU.
In January 2020, a second attempt was made by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, at the suggestion of Moscow, to convene a meeting in Amman to create opposition to the Ecumenical Patriarch because of his "interference" in the Ukrainian church crisis. The Patriarch of Jerusalem refused all his letters of invitation to the Primates.
In January, Patriarch Bartholomew sent a letter to Jerusalem "in a strict tone", in which he reminded that Theophilus is not competent for such steps, so the "initiator" of the Amman meeting no longer insisted on his initiative. The only church that agreed to attend the meeting was the Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia. The Primates of the Greek and Cypriot churches publicly refused to arrive.
So, despite the entire arsenal of available funds, Russia has not been able to form a grand coalition against Constantinople. Now the general state of orthodoxy on the church map does not look in favor of the Russian Orthodox Church.