Phanar’s shift to new calendar triggered Orthodox schism – ROCOR hierarch

Metropolitan Mark. Photo: Protodeacon Andrei Psarev

In an interview with UOJ in Germany, Metropolitan Mark of Berlin and Germany said that divisions in Orthodoxy have already lasted for more than a hundred years – and are connected with the Church of Constantinople’s transition to the new calendar style.

According to the hierarch, the adoption of the Roman Catholic calendar by the Church in Istanbul became a bad example that the Romanian, Bulgarian, and other Churches followed. This, he said, produced divisions everywhere within local Churches. “Along with the change of the calendar came numerous innovations in other areas,” the metropolitan noted.

He stressed that a particular test for Orthodox unity was the Constantinople Church’s imposition of a “first without equals” status, which, he said, began to be actively promoted after the 2016 Council of Crete.

“The most far-reaching innovation has been the claims of the Constantinopolitan (Istanbul) Patriarchate to an unprecedented supremacy within Orthodoxy,” the hierarch emphasized.

Earlier, the UOJ reported that, according to Metropolitan Mark, the ban on the UOC is comparable to the persecutions of early Christians.

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