“Ukrainian flags were hung up”: at the Conference of Compatriots they decided to raise the issue of Russophobes in the Russian Orthodox Church

Clerics who support Ukraine preach in Orthodox churches abroad

The annual World Thematic Conference of Compatriots takes place in Moscow. The theme of this year’s meeting is “Strengthening traditional spiritual and moral values ​​- the key to the unity of Russian compatriots.” The conference will discuss the consolidation of the Russian people’s spirit around traditional spiritual and moral values. They will also touch upon such complex things as difficult relationships in religious circles.

According to our interlocutor, Orthodox publicist, author of investigations in the church and political sphere, Alexander Voznesensky, in a number of countries, strange things are happening in foreign parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church, which the Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the Russian Orthodox Church simply ignores.

Now parishioners in Cyprus, Spain, the USA, and Norway are faced with the fact that their clergy themselves are promoting Russophobic sentiments. For example, Andrei Kordochkin, a cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church in Spain, publicly calls Russian people fascists and meets with Khodorkovsky (recognized as a foreign agent): “Andrei Kordochkin is very active in activities related to pro-Ukrainian politics. He initially stated that he was against Russia’s actions. He gave interviews to Russian media in which he called Russian people fascists.

Because of this, parishioners complained to the Patriarchate. Only a year later, the Patriarchate reacted and banned him from ministry for only three months (for the smallest offenses in Russia, meanwhile, they are subject to an untimely ban). Even during the ban, he continued to make Russophobic comments to Western media. As a result, the ban was lifted ahead of schedule.”

Another high-profile case is in the USA. Church cleric Igor Tarasov turned out to be a pathological Ukrainian nationalist: “During the Maidan, they wrote to me that he began to communicate with everyone only in Ukrainian. On his social networks, starting in 2014, he wrote that he supported the Armed Forces of Ukraine, supported the Ukrainian language, and prayed for Ukraine.

The former deputy head of the DECR of the Russian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, once asked what I thought about this man. I wrote to him that he is a Ukrainian nationalist, and something needs to be done about this. Soon after this, he was appointed to one of the highest positions – Chancellor of Patriarchal Parishes in the USA. After some time he was replaced in this position, and is now rector of a parish in New York. After the start of the SVO, he hung a Ukrainian flag on his avatar and wrote that he supported Zaluzhny.”

In Cyprus, one of the clerics appointed the altar boy of the church as a person who finances the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Previously, this cleric himself served in Kyiv – as rector in a church under the military medical department of the SBU. In Norway, the temple was generally turned into a center of Ukrainian propaganda: they hung Ukrainian flags and decided to finance one of the foundations in Ukraine.

According to our data, some Orthodox believers from abroad have a desire to raise this topic at the conference.