According to Prince Trubetskoy, ‘Russian Exarchate’ leaders of the Patriarchate of Constantinople disregard parishioners of Russian origin

Prince Alexander Trubetskoy, a prominent Russian émigré, stated that the Patriarchate of Constantinople in Western Europe does not reckon with Russian parishioners, Interfax reports.

This is how he commented on the recent statements by the secretary of the Exarchate of Russian Parishes (Patriarchate of Constantinople), Michael Sollogub, that ‘the transfer of the church (in Biarritz) to the Moscow Patriarchate was attempted by a rather numerous group of parishioners who were not actually members of the parish association’.

‘Doesn’t it mean that the archdiocese (under the jurisdiction of Constantinople) does not reckon with the faithful who just come to church to pray? They are called parishioners, but they represent nobody’, Trubetskoy writes in a letter published in Russkaya Mysl in Paris.

He also noted that Russian parishes have been increasingly filled with Orthodox from the CIS countries, and it is necessary to take their opinion into account.