Metropolitan Amfilohije of Crna Gora and Primorje: Patriarch of Constantinople destroyed the centuries-old unity of Orthodox Churches
On 3 January 2019, Metropolitan Amfilohije of Crna Gora and Primorje gave an interview to Vijesti TV in which he said that Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople had destroyed the centuries-old unity of the Orthodox Churches instead of playing the role of consolidator of all Orthodox Christians.
The archpastor said that many theologians and bishops in Greece are critical of Patriarch Bartholomew’s behavior and that other Local Orthodox Churches, including the Serbian Orthodox Church, did not accept the decision on Ukraine taken by Phanar not in the spirit of God’s Church. He also said that the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s behavior was conditioned by the influence of secular politics of Europe and America as it needs their support, but its expectation that all Ukrainians would join the schismatics has not come true.
The interviewer asked Metropolitan Amfilohije whether the Patriarchate of Constantinople was the supreme ecclesiastical authority for the Serbian Orthodox Church, and the hierarch answered: Absolutely not. He continued to say that the supreme authority exists only in the Catholic Church in the person of Pope, while Orthodoxy has during ten centuries struggled to uphold the teaching of the equality of the authority of bishops. The Serbian hierarch is convinced that Patriarch of Constantinople had committed an error of intervention to the life of the Russian Church by rescinding the decision taken by Patriarch Dionysius’ some three hundred years ago thus showing that Patriarch Bartholomew wanted to play the role of Pope in the Orthodox world. The Orthodox Church has remained Orthodox because it never has a Pope.