Russian intelligence takes aim at Ecumenical Patriarch in public statement

Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) on Monday issued a statement criticizing Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, accusing him of actions that it said undermine Russian Orthodoxy.

"The 'devil in the flesh' is obsessed with the idea of displacing Russian Orthodoxy from the territory of the Baltic states, approving in its place church structures fully controlled by the Phanar," the SVR said.

The agency also described the patriarch as an "Antichrist in a cassock" and claimed he was being supported by British intelligence services to fuel anti-Russian sentiment in Europe.

The SVR alleged that Bartholomew has coordinated with authorities in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to distance local churches from the Moscow Patriarchate, claiming he relied on "local nationalists and neo-Nazis."

It further claimed that his "aggressive appetites" extended to Montenegro, accusing him of planning to grant autocephaly to the "Montenegrin Orthodox Church" in order to weaken the Serbian Orthodox Church.

Comparing the patriarch to "false prophets," the agency said: "They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves ... by their fruits you will know them."

Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate were severed in 2019 after Bartholomew granted independence to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, a move Moscow considers a violation of canonical jurisdiction.