Russian Orthodox church cancelled meetings in Moscow, so as not to be disgraced twice, - Oleksandr Sagan

Religious scholar Oleksandr Sagan said it in an interview with Religiyna Pravda answering a question about a possible attempt by Moscow to impose anathema on Patriarch Bartholomew.

"Even those churches that are conditional satellites are unlikely to be in strong opposition to the Ecumenical Patriarch. This is a different Greek (Romanian, Bulgarian, Georgian, etc.) world, and they will not go under the Moscow "Tsar-father", so the meeting in Moscow was cancelled, so as not to be disgraced twice, as was the case with Amman. They say that we will gather and condemn everyone. The money was acquired but it turned out to be zilch. In order not to be disgraced twice, they postponed it," the expert stressed and added:

"Patriarch Bartholomew managed to hold a Pan-Orthodox Council, the meetings of which, I think, will continue (at least this was discussed at the Council). Bartholomew is one of the chances to strengthen universal Orthodoxy... Today, without a Pan-Orthodox Council, which will work on a permanent basis, it will be difficult for Orthodoxy as a direction to survive."

According to him, Moscow is now actually following the Armenian scenario, trying to proclaim itself a single "True Church":

"The dislike for the Greek world that it cultivates is an element of the confrontation and struggle of the Greek and Moscow vision of the future of Orthodoxy (open to other Christian Churches and the world as a whole conditionally Greek model and politicized version – "political orthodoxy" – performed by the Moscow clergy). The Muscovite Church declares its position as follows: those who are not with me are wrong. This is a very wrong position."

Oleksandr Sagan does not rule out that the Moscow Patriarchate if it does not change its position, will attempt to split universal Orthodoxy and form some version of the orthodoxy of its own.

"Let's hope that this will not happen," the expert concluded.