Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, said that “the division that happened at the political level has now also happened at the church level”
Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, said Saturday that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s meeting with Metropolitan Epiphany (Dumenko), head of the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and his ignoring other religious figures in the country proves American involvement in the schismatic organisation.
“The fact that the US Secretary of State met with the leader of the schism, but did not meet with any other religious leader, not the head of the canonical church, nor with Muslim or Jewish leaders, shows once again TASS quoted Metropolitan Hilarion as saying on Russia 24 TV channel’s Church and Peace programme. The so-called the Orthodox Church of Ukraine led by the so-called metropolitan, in fact, false metropolitan, Epiphanii, is a US project, a political project from start to finish”, – he was quoted as saying by TASS.
Asked about the connection between the US Secretary of State’s meeting with Metropolitan Epiphanius and the later seizures of canonical churches in Ukraine, the Metropolitan expressed confidence that it was no coincidence.
“This is something that has been created by the Americans in order to once again embody the divide-and-conquer principle that they are guided by. This division, which happened at the political level, has now also happened at the ecclesiastical level”, – Metropolitan Hilarion continued.