The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) "did not take any hostile actions against Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople before granting them the Tomos of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU)." This was stated by Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate, on September 19 in the broadcast of the program "Church and World" on the Federal TV channel "Russia-24".
This was reported by UNN.
"We have not taken any action to the detriment of the Patriarch of Constantinople over all these years. On the contrary, we regularly updated him about our position. We warned him about the consequences of the actions that he intended to take. That is, we did our best to prevent these actions, and after our warnings were not heard, after these actions occurred, our task is to deal with their consequences and minimize the damage to world Orthodoxy caused by the actions of the Patriarch of Constantinople," he said, adding that what Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople did" in Ukraine can be compared to a natural disaster.
"The split has not been overcome. It has deepened, and now this split covers not only Ukraine but also many other countries and other local Churches," the ROC Metropolitan believes.