The Greek Ministry of Education is considering the possibility of phasing out a number of Church higher education institutions in Greece.
Of course, this will be painful for the Church of Greece, as well as for the Churches of Constantinople, Cyprus, Albania, Jerusalem, Alexandria and some other Churches.
But we need to recognize one important factor: it was the Greek theological educational institutions that became the hotbed for the spread of the doctrine of “primacy without equals” of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In these schools, the people are forged who believe that “Orthodox papism”, in one way or another, is an indispensable part of the Tradition of the Orthodox Church. A hundred years ago, Patriarch Meletios tried to instill this error in the Church and met with tremendous resistance, especially in the Church of Greece. Patriarch Athenagoras managed to achieve much more in this direction. Now it is completely dominant in the assessment of interchurch relations in these schools. In addition, this has played a significant role in today’s split in world Orthodoxy.
Even the theologian, highly respected throughout the Orthodox world, the primate of the Albanian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Anastasy, who opposed the recognition of Ukrainian schismatics, and he became a victim of Phanar`s papism in his theological education. Therefore, on the one hand, he refuses to recognize the OCU, convincingly disputes their ordinations, advocates the convening of a Pan-Orthodox Council to solve this problem, and on the other hand, opposes the Amman format, stating that such inter-Orthodox events are possible only with the blessing of Constantinople. Although this not only blocks the resolution of the crisis, but also clearly contradicts the Tradition of the Church and numerous precedents in church history. The secret of this duality is simple: the primacy of Constantinople has been absorbed along with basic knowledge in the Greek theological school since the 40s… The same can be said about many bishops of the Albanian, Cyprus and Alexandrian Churches.
Therefore, it is very difficult to correlate the negative and positive consequences of the possible closure of Greek theological schools. On the other hand, the practice of Constantinople to send its clergy to study in Catholic universities is well known, which brings even worse results. Moreover, not only for the Greeks, but also for the Russian Church.