A US-based Orthodox Christian group on Friday expressed dismay at a verbal attack, a month ago, on the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians by Russia’s secret service.

The Archons group, made up of people honored by the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for service to the church, took issue with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, “deriding this holy man as ‘antichrist in a cassock’ and ‘devil in the flesh.’”

In a January 12 statement published on its website, the SVR claimed that Bartholomew “dismembered Orthodox Ukraine” and is now targeting the Baltic states to supplant Russian Orthodox structures with churches “completely under the control” of the patriarchate.

The Archons group said in a statement that “it is nothing short of scandalous” that the Russian Orthodox Church has not defended Bartholomew.

“The Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate are grateful to Almighty God for the opportunity to stand with our beloved Ecumenical Patriarch, who has shown yet again in this controversy that his primary concern is for the well-being of the Churches of God, as opposed to those who have allowed the Church to become a tool of the foreign policy agendas of an unscrupulous and imperialistic government,” the group added.

Relations between the world’s Orthodox churches are not always amicable.

Source: Ekathimerini.com