By creating its Exarchate in Africa, the Russian Orthodox Church showed that it "did not learn the lesson of 1917 well," Metropolitan Paul (Apostolidis) of Drama (Archdiocese of Greece) said on January 16.
This is reported by the publication "Vima Orthodoxy", according to Portal-Credo.
According to Metropolitan Paul, the creation of such an Exarchate is a revival of "Pan-Slavism of pre-revolutionary Russia, which is returning with a new force and with revenge."
The hierarch said that the Russian Orthodox church acts in this case "too bluntly and provocatively, relying on state forces, but they forget about the Divine slap in the face that they received during the 1917 revolution, and they show that they did not learn this lesson well."