A-Infos (en) Italy, UCADI #203 - The Triumph of Hypocrisy (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

As part of his trip to Turkey for the 17th centenary of the First 
Council of Nicaea, on November 29, Pope Leo XIV visited the Ecumenical 
Patriarchate located in the Faner district of Istanbul to meet 
Bartholomew I, the unfailing Patriarch since 1991 of a Church without 
canonical territory yet very powerful. After celebrating the Doxology in 
the Church of St. George, the seat of the Patriarchate, amid the sweet 
smell of beeswax candles and incense, the two proceeded to the adjacent 
Kokkini Spiti (Ross House, from the color of its walls), the seat of the 
Patriarchate's offices. "Deeply alarmed by the current international 
situation, they signed a 'joint declaration,'" they affirmed, sharing a 
shared vision of the main challenges to be faced. They stated: "The goal 
of Christian unity includes the aim of contributing in a fundamental and 
life-giving way to peace among all peoples. Together, we fervently raise 
our voices invoking the divine gift of peace upon our world. Tragically, 
in many of its regions, conflicts and violence continue to destroy the 
lives of so many people. We appeal to those with civil and political 
responsibilities to do everything possible to ensure that the tragedy of 
war ends immediately, and we ask all people of good will to support our 
plea.

In particular, we reject any use of the religion and the Name of God to 
justify violence."
The manifest hypocrisy inherent in these intentions comes to light 
clearly and evidently when we look at the subsequent statement from both 
sides, which states: "We believe that authentic interreligious dialogue, 
far from being a cause of syncretism and confusion, is essential for the 
coexistence of peoples belonging to different traditions and cultures."
In this case, the hypocrisy does not concern Pope Leo XIV, but the 
Ecumenical Patriarch, who is one of the main players in the war in 
Ukraine. He fomented the conflict in 2019 by granting, in exchange for 
money and generous benefits, autocephaly to the Ukrainian Autocephalous 
Church, desired by the Kiev government as the national Church. This 
created the conditions for a ferocious interreligious war that is 
tearing the country apart, parallel to the war on the battlefields and 
in the skies.
The institutional and cultural crisis that occurred in the Eastern 
European states formerly part of the Soviet bloc, predominantly 
Orthodox, meant that, with the ideological structures that supported 
them disappearing, they sought legitimacy for their legal structure in 
the tradition that attributes great importance to the role of the 
autocephalous national Church in the legitimacy of the State, to the 
point that its existence gives rise to the right to govern society. In 
this type of state, the relationship between the two entities is 
governed by a thoroughly "Byzantine" perspective on Church-State 
relations, based on the symphony of powers (simfonija vlastej) or 
consonantia, or harmonious relationship between Sacerdotium and 
Imperium. This theory finds its formulation in the Praefatio of the 
Sixth Novella of Justinian, addressed to Epiphanius, Most Holy 
Archbishop of the imperial city and Ecumenical Patriarch, which states 
that the greatest gifts bestowed by God are the priesthood and the 
empire, the former at the service of divine things and the latter at the 
guidance of human affairs.
It follows that the Church must place itself at the service of the 
State, assuming a national and therefore autocephalous dimension, 
fulfilling an identity-building function that becomes the foundation of 
the State's authority over what they consider to be its national 
dimension of reference, for purposes that restore the role of religious 
organizations to an instrument of State policy. In this respect, 
Ukraine, at the time of its independence, found itself in an anomalous 
position: its majority Orthodox Church was an integral part of the 
Russian Orthodox Church, a Church that claims to be universal and 
supranational, but which in fact serves as a point of reference and 
supports another state, Russia. A large segment of the Ukrainian 
political community sought to distance itself from this state, as from 
every other state, precisely to confer Ukraine's identity and autonomy.
Thus began a process of gradual aggregation of different ecclesiastical 
experiences, all traceable to Orthodoxy, which underwent processes of 
aggregation and integration of the different ecclesiastical structures 
that had existed until then, merging in 2019 to form a single 
ecclesiastical structure that pursues autocephaly. There is only one way 
to achieve this: by appealing to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of 
Constantinople, which, after complex proceedings and the payment of 
appropriate sums, privileges, and property by the state (under 
Poroshenko), granted it. The new Church can therefore claim primacy and 
a privileged bond with the nation and the state, legitimizing its 
autonomy and independence.
With the rise to power of Zelensky, who had promised religious 
pacification in his government program, the conflicts between the 
different Churches intensified, and the state effectively began 
persecuting the canonical Orthodox Church, linked to the Moscow 
Patriarchate, recognizing the representative body of religious 
confessions established by the law on religious freedom as having 
primacy over other confessions in the autocephalous Orthodox Church.
With the support of right-wing nationalist groups, an increasingly 
insistent and constant stripping of the ecclesiastical property of the 
canonical Orthodox Church took place in favor of the autocephalous 
Orthodox Church, obedient to the government.
Churches were invaded, rigged assemblies of the faithful were called to 
decide whether the place of worship should be transferred to the new 
denomination, which also led to the stripping of property and income. 
Faithful and ministers of religion were expelled from their churches. 
Religious freedom was trampled upon and denied. The struggle between the 
Churches and the defense of religious freedom became part of the conflict.

War and Religious Persecution

With the outbreak of war, religious persecution intensified and 
intensified; many ministers and bishops from the canonical Orthodox 
Church were arrested, courts decreed the confiscation of property and 
churches, and the expulsion of the faithful from places of worship. Many 
Orthodox monasteries, which were veritable businesses due to their size 
and production activities, were confiscated.
The Patriarchate of Constantinople effectively directs and inspires this 
campaign of expropriation and religious persecution and offers the 
Autocephalous Orthodox Church international cover within the Orthodox 
ecumene, though with limited success. Only a few Patriarchates, small in 
number by their faithful-the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Greek 
Patriarchate, and, more discreetly, those of Alexandria, Antioch, and 
Jerusalem-recognize the new Church, while the Ecumenical Patriarchate 
and the Patriarchate of Moscow mutually excommunicate each other. Not 
only that, but in retaliation, the Moscow Patriarchate effectively 
emptied the Patriarchate of Alexandria, which has jurisdiction over 
Africa, establishing two eparchies-North Africa and Southern Africa. 
These eparchies removed the ministers of worship affiliated with the 
Patriarchate of Alexandria, paying them a salary and inducing them to 
join its own structure. Meanwhile, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, 
in agreement with governments supporting Ukraine, worked to establish 
and recognize Churches in the Baltic countries and in territories 
traditionally belonging to the canonical territory of the Orthodox 
Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

A war within a war: that between religious confessions

There is no doubt that the Patriarchate of Constantinople holds the 
historical primacy among the Orthodox Churches that have gradually 
achieved autocephaly, separating themselves from it. It must also be 
taken into account that there is no hierarchy among the Orthodox 
Patriarchates, as the different Churches are sister Churches at the same 
level. Furthermore, the Ecumenical Patriarchate currently has no 
faithful because it is based in a Muslim country and is therefore a 
Church without a flock.
To overcome this anomaly, the Patriarchate's theologians have invented a 
device that claims all Orthodox Christians in the diaspora fall within 
the Patriarchate's jurisdiction, thus resulting in the Orthodox of the 
United States, Canada, and Australia, along with those scattered around 
the world, falling within its jurisdiction. It goes without saying that 
this theory is contested by the national autocephalous Churches that 
claim their own diasporas. However, through this device, the Ecumenical 
Patriarchate receives funding from the faithful of these countries, who 
are among the wealthiest, and is therefore extremely wealthy.
Furthermore, in the best ecclesiastical tradition, the possession of 
money is not separated from the exercise of power, and thus the 
Patriarchate is dedicated to profiting from the sale of autocephaly, 
which is granted for a large sum of money, as happened in the case of 
Ukraine and most recently with the Macedonian Orthodox Church.

But if it is true that peculia non olet (peculia smells nothing), the 
hands of the wheeler-dealers of this ecclesiastical structure are 
dripping with the blood of the war they claim to oppose.

The Responsibilities of Leo XIV

If it's true that blatant hypocrisy is evident from the contrast between 
the statements and behavior of Bartholomew, Patriarch of Constantinople, 
the Pontiff of Rome, who is also a head of state endowed with his own 
highly efficient diplomacy, cannot fail to be aware of and ignore these 
facts. If it's true that the Catholic Church, in the name of ecumenical 
dialogue, needs interlocutors, identifying the Patriarch of 
Constantinople as the point of reference for the Orthodox world means 
acknowledging a primacy that doesn't exist, granting a congregation of 
filthy and filthy merchants, based on the banks of the Bosphorus, a 
recognition that helps them better carry out their activities as money 
grabbers, agitators, and propagandists of conflict-activities that 
should not be compatible with the Gospel message.
It's sobering that, under this pope's leadership, the Catholic Church 
also wants to emulate its "Orthodox brothers." This is evidenced by Pope 
Leo XIV's decision in December 2025 to abolish the "Commission for 
Donations to the Holy See," established by Pope Francis, which 
controlled the funds channeled to the IOR, preferring a return to 
Peter's Pence, which is directly controlled by the Institute.
This overall attitude is not surprising: consider the behavior of the 
Catholic Church in Ukraine, which, through the primate of the country's 
Greek Catholic Church, has done nothing to protect the religious freedom 
not only of faithful belonging to the canonical Orthodox Church, but 
also that of other Churches located on Ukrainian soil, such as that of 
the Romanian minority dependent on the Patriarchate of Bucharest. This 
has contributed to transforming a self-styled liberal state into one 
repressive of the most basic freedoms.

G.C.

https://www.ucadi.org/2025/12/23/il-trionfo-dellipocrisia/
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