Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the United States of recognizing the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the United States of recognizing the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Russian media report that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the aforementioned after the talks with his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias, according to Pryamyy.
Thus, Lavrov has stressed that there is an external influence in matters relating to the Greek Orthodox Church (GOC) and the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU).
In particular, the Russian Foreign Minister said that the “letter of peace” sent to the head of the UOC Epifaniy from the head of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Hieronymus of Athens and all Greece was preceded by a visit to Athens by US Secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
“The head of the US Department of State did not particularly try to conceal that it was among the issues that he solved,” Lavrov said.
In his opinion, for this purpose (recognizing the OCU - ed.), American diplomats visited the Mount Athos, and Metropolitan Epifaniy publicly stated that the creation of the Church entity would be impossible without the direct support of Washington.
"It becomes obvious that the United States do not want to remain satisfied with what has already been done and they are trying to promote a split in the Orthodox world as a whole. Such work is carried out with almost all Orthodox churches," the Russian diplomat stressed.
As it was reported, the Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Hieronymous sent a letter to Metropolitan Epifaniy of Kyiv and All Ukraine, which refers to the official recognition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.