The Smashers of the Orthodox Church
Friday, January 23, 2026
The recent slashing attack launched by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) against the Ecumenical Patriarchate – and personally against Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew – should not have come as a surprise to those possessing historical memory and sound judgment. This assault unmistakably bears the unholy “blessing” of the Moscow Patriarchate.
It is by now well established that the Russian state and the institutional leadership of the Russian Church, under Patriarch Kyrill, have fused into a grotesque ecclesiastical–political hybrid. When the Church is transformed from the Body of Christ into a political ideology cloaked in religiosity – particularly of a fundamentalist variety – it ceases to be the Church, regardless of how faithfully it may retain external forms and ceremonial trappings.
History reminds us that Russia’s claim to autocephaly itself was born of coercion. When Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II traveled to Russia seeking assistance, Tsar Theodore effectively detained him and pressured him into signing the Tomos of Russian autocephaly. From that moment onward, Moscow has been obsessed with usurping the primacy of the First-Throned Church of Constantinople – failing to grasp that ecumenicity and catholicity are not numerical concepts.
This obsession manifested again in 2016, when Moscow attempted – demonically – to sabotage the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church in Crete, dragging four other Churches along with it. Patriarch Bartholomew, acting wisely and courageously, proceeded with the Council’s convocation, leaving the Russians outside the bridal chamber – resentful and unable to accept the outcome.
The crisis reached a breaking point in 2019, when the Ecumenical Patriarchate granted autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine, following repeated appeals by Ukraine’s political leadership, clergy, and faithful. This decision came only after more than a decade of painstaking efforts to achieve cooperation and consensus with Moscow.
Let us not forget: Constantinople brought the Rus’ into Orthodoxy – from Kyiv, a city rightly regarded as sacred. The forced incorporation of Ukraine and the Baltic states into the atheist Soviet regime enslaved their Churches alongside their peoples. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence of these nations, ecclesiastical liberation became both natural and inevitable. The canonical responsibility to address such matters belongs solely to the First-Throned Church of Constantinople – and it was to Constantinople that these requests were directed.
A crucial point must be underscored: Patriarch Bartholomew did not act unilaterally. He responded to formal appeals from governments, peoples, and clergy seeking autocephaly in Ukraine and the establishment of Exarchates in Estonia and Latvia. If he may be faulted at all, it is for having delayed – faithful to the Phanar’s maxim festina lente (“make haste slowly”), which does not always yield the desired results.
Ukraine’s autocephaly drove the Russian politico-ecclesiastical apparatus into frenzy. It responded by waging a dual war: a military one – bombs and weapons against the Orthodox people of Ukraine – and an ecclesiastical one against the Ecumenical Patriarchate; against the Patriarchate of Alexandria through an uncanonical intrusion (eispidisi) and the establishment of an Exarchate accompanied by the “purchase” of clergy and faithful; and against the Churches of Greece and Cyprus for daring to recognize Ukrainian autocephaly.
In essence, Moscow has become a smasher of Orthodoxy. It has forged an alliance of Slavic Churches, regrettably drawing in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem through its peculiar maneuverings, and aligning also with the Church of Albania – even during the lifetime of Archbishop Anastasios.
Another tragicomic episode soon followed. Patriarch Bartholomew, acting magnanimously for the sake of unity, restored Eucharistic communion with the Church of Skopje under Metropolitan Stephen. Yet Patriarch Porphyrios of Serbia then intervened “like a thief in the night,” granting autocephaly unilaterally and proclaiming the “Autocephalous Church of Macedonia,” trampling the canonical and ecclesiological order of Orthodoxy.
As a result, the Orthodox world today resembles a sorrowful scattering village, trapped in suffocating dead ends. Nevertheless, Patriarch Bartholomew – acting correctly – has not removed the name of Patriarch Kyrill from the Diptychs, despite Kyrill having severed communion with Constantinople, Alexandria, Athens, and Cyprus.
These developments raise the pressing question: what is to be done?
The war between Russia and Ukraine will eventually end. Putin once boasted of victory within six days; four years have now passed. Should Russia prevail, new and painful challenges will confront the Autocephalous Church of Ukraine. Metropolitan Onuphry, aligned with Moscow, shows little inclination toward reconciliation or unity above the ambitions of Putin and Kyrill.
Meanwhile, the Slavic bloc – coordinating closely with Moscow – appears intent on advancing a de facto division of Orthodoxy, effectively holding Patriarch Bartholomew hostage. Should he convene even an informal gathering of Orthodox Primates, it is likely that the Slavs – and regrettably Jerusalem – would refuse to attend, rendering the Ecumenical Patriarch visibly isolated.
Yet Moscow hesitates to openly challenge Constantinople’s primacy, despite its aspirations to become a so-called “Third Rome.” There is no Third Rome – nor can there be one. History has already established the New Rome. A tragic exception thus far remains the Serbian Patriarch Porphyrios.
Finally, we cannot ignore the covert and overt sympathies of certain metropolitans, monasteries, and individuals with Moscow – actors who consciously fragment Orthodox unity while hurling gutter-level rhetoric against their own Ecclesiastical Mother, the Church of Constantinople. These are unmistakable signs of desperation, confusion, and ecclesiastical impasse.
Theodore Kalmoukos Θεόδωρος Καλμούκος
Religion Editor Εκκλησιαστικός συντάκτης
Omogenia Ομογένεια
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