The “historic primacy” of the Church of Jerusalem was “discovered” by Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Hilarion, who, speaking to Russian media, continues to accuse the Phanar of refusing dialogue.
The President of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, accompanying Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem at Sheremetievo Airport, responded to questions from Russian media outlining that the visit of the Patriarch of Jerusalen will be an important milestone in the history of the two Churches.
Metropolitan Hilarion spoke of the “historic primacy” of the Church of Jerusalem within the family of the local Orthodox Churches since, as he mentioned, Jerusalem was the site of both the martyrdom and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, emphasizing that “this historic primacy cannot be taken from the Church of Jerusalem by anyone, ever.”
Mr. Hilarion praised the initiative of the Patriarch of Jerusalem to convene a meeting of the Primates and expressed the hope that he would be supported by the other local Orthodox Churches. However, he did not miss to accuse once more the Phanar for refusing dialogue.
“We are pleased that the initiative of the Orthodox meeting was taken by the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem. We have always been ready for dialogue and have repeatedly said that to the Patriarch of Constantinople.
But the Patriarch of Constantinople himself did not want that dialogue. Patriarch of Moscow Kirill, when visited him in August 2018, proposed to discuss the Ukrainian issue both on a bilateral and an inter-orthodox level. However, all the proposals were rejected because the Patriarch of Constantinople had already made the decision to ‘grant the autocephaly to Ukraine’, which in fact evolved into granting the ‘Tomos of Autocephaly’ to the Ukrainian schismatics. Today we see the sad consequences of this act.”