THE Russian foreign intelligence service (SVR) has once again accused the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew of Constantinople, of pursuing a “treacherous line aimed at splitting global Orthodoxy” (News, 23 January), by using the recent death of the Patriarch of Georgia, Ilia II, as an excuse to interfere in the upcoming patriarchal elections through the backing of two candidates.
“The Phanariot intends to promote to the vacant post a representative of the Georgian Orthodox Church on whom he could rely,” the SVR said on Tuesday.
The statement continued: “Church circles note that lust for power has become a defining trait of the Constantinopolitan schismatic,” arguing that Patriarch Bartholomew “once again replaces ‘primacy of honour’ with ‘primacy of power’, interfering in the internal affairs of yet another Church — this time, the Georgian Orthodox Church, one of the oldest in the Orthodox world.”
Responding to the development, the head of the public relations service of the Patriarchate of Georgia, Archpriest Andria Jagmaidze, rejected the suggestion that the process for electing a new Patriarch could be dictated by a foreign centre.
Speaking to a local media outlet, he said that any “such interference from another local church is unimaginable to us; we consider it completely impossible,” OC-media reported.
The SVR report claimed that the Ecumenical Patriarch favours Metropolitan Abraham (Garmelia) of Western Europe, and Metropolitan Grigol (Berbichashvili) of Poti and Khobi, as candidates for the patriarchal throne.
Following the death of Patriarch Ilia II, at the age of 93, on 17 March, the process for electing a new Patriarch is expected to get under way soon. The election, which will be conducted by the Holy Synod’s 39 bishops, is expected to conclude within two months.
During the funeral service for the late Patriarch Ilia, Patriarch Bartholomew said that no one had so fully embodied Georgia’s Church, nation, statehood, and peace-making role in the Caucasus as Patriarch Ilia II, who was buried at the Sioni Patriarchal Cathedral, in Tbilisi.
After the funeral, Archpriest Jaghmaidze urged that speculation about the election process should not foster divisions within Georgian society.
According to the Georgian Orthodox Church’s election procedure, one of the candidates reportedly backed by Patriarch Bartholomew, 77-year-old Metropolitan Abraham (Garmelia), is ineligible to be elected Patriarch, as candidates must be at least 40 years old, and no older than 70.
The SVR, which is headed by Sergey Naryshkin, is Russia’s main civilian foreign intelligence agency. It launched a similar offensive in January against the Patriarch of Constantinople, describing him as the “Antichrist in a cassock” and the “devil incarnate”.
It accused him of aiming to displace Russian Orthodoxy across the Baltic states and “dismember” Orthodox Ukraine, with the help of British intelligence. It also claimed that Patriarch Bartholomew was considering granting autocephaly (church independence) to the unrecognised Montenegrin Orthodox Church.
Responding to the attacks in January, the Ecumenical Patriarchate said that they were “fabricated claims” that would not “deter the Ecumenical Patriarchate from the continuation of its ministry and its ecumenical mission”.
“The Mother Church of Constantinople — who is also the Mother of the Church of Russia — expresses its deepest sorrow over the latest Russian attack directed against the person of His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, an attack which on this occasion has been mounted by state authorities of that country,” the Ecumenical Patriarchate said.
