ROC launches defamation campaign against Patriarch Bartholomew while losing the prospect of being influential Church forever, - Andrii Yurash

On May 19, Andrii Yrash commented on the scandal that was artificially created and manually fueled by some Turkish Pro-Islamist media and was directed against Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who, along with other non-Muslim leaders of Turkey, was accused of supporting "terrorism" and collaborating with Fethullah Gulen, the main opponent of the current Turkish President.

The religious scholar believes that this whole action looks like a well-planned action that was paid by third forces, interested in undermining the authority of the most important figure in the Orthodox world and specifies this force – the ROC.

"It is the Russian Orthodox Church, which, through the granting of autocephaly by Patriarch Bartholomew to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, has forever lost the prospect of becoming the most influential and first Orthodox Church in the diptych, is a wealthy opponent of His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew and has put in place a whole system of actions and actions aimed at discrediting the personality of Patriarch Bartholomew and marginalizing the Ecumenical Patriarchate in all ways," Andrii Yurash concludes.