Patriarch of Constantinople threatens his critics with Judgment Day

Patriarch Bartholomew. Photo: orthodoxianewsagency

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew spoke sharply about his critics, saying that they “should be afraid of Judgment Day”. He said this in an interview with the Greek newspaper NEA Saturday–Sunday, commenting on accusations voiced by Russian state structures.

Asked whether such attacks and accusations frighten him, the patriarch said he feels no fear. “I am not afraid of the false and fabricated information they spread, nor of dirty attacks, nor of slander against our Patriarchate and against my person,” he said.

At the same time, the head of the Constantinople Patriarchate shifted the discussion into an eschatological register, saying it is his opponents who should fear the consequences of their actions. “On the contrary, all of them should be afraid of Judgment Day – if, of course, they believe,” the Ecumenical Patriarch is convinced.

According to him, at the Last Judgment his critics, in particular, “will be judged for the war in Ukraine” – for calling it “holy” – and for attempts, as he put it, “to destroy the unity of Orthodoxy” by using “Stalinist propaganda tactics”.

Patriarch Bartholomew also accused his opponents of seeking to create a “Russia-controlled hybrid” which, he said, “has nothing in common with Orthodoxy”. He added that Constantinople is being accused of precisely the actions his critics themselves are committing. “This is a mirror image – a projection of their own subversive actions,” the patriarch believes.

Recent statements by Russian special services, he said, have only shown “how far propaganda can go” and, in his view, have also demonstrated “who in Russia has the decisive word even in church affairs”.

As the UOJ previously reported, in Constantinople, they called their patriarch “a servant of the unity of the Church”.

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