Hashemite Gathering one year on

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One Year ago—jots what?
God—spell the word! I—can't--
Was't Grace? Not that--
Was't Glory? That—will do--
Spell slower—Glory--

Incongruously the Primate of the Church of Jerusalem Patriarch Theophilos waxes poetic as Dickinson. Yet somehow Theophilos falls short of Dickinson’s intended “glory”:
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“One year ago, this week, we gathered in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to build our common fellowship in the pursuit of a dialogue of love for the sake of the unity of the Local Orthodox Churches. After two days of prayer and fraternal discussion, we emerged with greater determination to pursue deeper communion, and to address our common challenges together.”

Ethically he ought to have pronounced we failed. 

​Patriarch Theophilos is living in a world of denial and he is intentionally misleading anyone who reads his February 24th, 2021 letter, which curiously was released by the Russian Orthodox Church. To suggest “the Patriarchate of Moscow is interested in the unity of the Orthodox Church” is preposterous. “On the contrary, I believe it lives by the anti-Christian doctrine of “divide and conquer.” 

Leading up to this “Hashemite Get-together” especially since the Council in Crete (2016), the benefactor and coordinator of the 2020 wreck in Amman, the Patriarch of Moscow, has worked himself up into a frenzy. Regularly having tantrums, paroxysms, and has consistently invaded the legally recognized ecclesiastic geographic territory of other Primates. 

The demonstrable triviality of Patriarch Cyril is palpable in his response to the canonical Tomos of Autocephaly granted to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Grasp the petty-mindedness pandering of the Russian Patriarch who says Turkey converting a museum into a mosque was “punishment from God.” “The Patriarchate of Moscow’s decision to suspend commemoration of the Ecumenical Patriarch, well before Autocephaly was granted to the Church of Ukraine was a pretext designed by Moscow in order to begin implementing a premeditated plan conceived several decades ago.”

Unable to contain himself, literally, a week before the official signing of Ukrainian autocephaly, Patriarch Cyril impetuously establishes an Exarchate in South-East Asia (December 28, 2018). On the same day, in an interview with Russia-24, the disgraceful and degrading Metropolitan Hilarion, spokesman of the ROC, childishly declared "we will now act as if they [Constantinople] do not exist at all…”

In Ukraine, the imaginary trigger for Amman, "there is an autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine and there is the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine. Both graceful structures but we are canonical" and the Muscovites are not. This truthful sentiment does not deter the Putin loyalists under Cyril’s omophorion to violently attack and instill fear in entire villages, but to no avail as large swaths of Ukraine elect freedom from the yoke of Muscovite oppression.
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In another confrontational act in February 2019, within a month of the Tomos the Russian Orthodox Church generated a diocese in Korea. The 19th century Church was officially received in the jurisdictional authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1955. Yet suddenly Cyril needs a Metropolis? No denunciation from Theophilos and not on the Amman agenda… curious? Not when you muse Qatar was also not mentioned in Amman.

“On Cyprus, too, the ROC has constructed new churches for the growing Russian population, while Russian ‘soft power’ benefits from close, pan-orthodox connections.” Several pro-Russian Diocese and bishops have benefited financially, and their allegiance is clearly visible in their rhetoric. The Metropolitans of Tamassos, Kykkou and Limassol are prime examples.

Recently the “Georgian Patriarchate responded harshly to the Russian Orthodox Church's gross infringement of its canonical territory.” Moscow ignores all appeals. Moscow’s aggressions percolate around the globe yet Theophilos is conveniently silent even while campaigning for Amman’s alleged “Triumph”.

In Africa, Moscow openly threatens individual Diocese to secede from the Patriarchate of Alexandria and become part of the Russian Patriarchate threatening to establish para-synagogues in those dioceses who will not acquiesce to Cyril’s demands. Metropolitan Hilarion Aleyfev “We have already opened several African parishes, to which the Russian parishes submitted; even the Russian priests who carried out their service in those churches temporarily became part of the Alexandrian jurisdiction, and now we will have to do it ourselves.” “Those clergy in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and other countries are ours.”

Some unbalanced Russian hierarchs are even attempting to tear apart the Holy Mount Athos with appeals to individual monks to cease commemoration of the Ecumenical Patriarch and even break with the Holy Mountain itself and tender allegiance to Moscow. Cyril grooming for a new Russian Sacred Administration (Ρωσική Ιερά Επιστασία) are rumored.

At present, Patriarch Cyril negligently dispatches priests to setup para-synagogues across many cities throughout Turkey: Constantinople, Antalya, Alaya, Smyrna, Eskişehir (near Ankara), Samsu, and Kuşadası all part of the ancient Metropolises of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Where is the indignation and admonition by the “Hashemite constituents” Arch-hypocrites!

In a last-ditch effort to further divide the church Patriarch Cyril conjured a new approach to propagate discord in the Church. In territories of other primates who have recognized Ukrainian autocephaly namely Constantinople, Alexandria, Cyprus, Greece, Ukraine, etc… the Moscow Patriarchate “will remain in communion with those clerics of churches who didn’t support the decision.” The Kremlin-centric Russian Synod has even begun to threaten those Primates who have taken a neutral stand in Ukrainian autocephaly. The appalling ambuscades of the Moscow patriarch supported by Jerusalem’s silence are evil.

Both Patriarchs Cyril and Theophilos of Jerusalem should be denounced if they consider ecclesial-geographic invasions a productive consequence of the Hashemite Gathering. You would have thought the Jerusalem/Antioch conflict over Qatar would give pause, to Theophilos. Any survey of the 2020 Hashemite gathering demonstrates it as an uncanonical ecclesial-fiasco which avoids self-reflection of its two hosts and its two participants. It was an absolute catastrophe no matter how Patriarch Theophilos spins its outcome, or intent. Unworthy!

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