The Russian Orthodox Church did not receive anything from Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople except schism, said Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations, RIA Novosti writes.

“We remember very well where we got the Orthodox faith – we got it from Constantinople, but only Patriarch Bartholomew did not participate at all in this. We did not receive any Orthodox faith from him, we did not get anything good from him – only the schism that he caused right on the canonical territory of our church,” he said in the program “Church and the world” on the TV channel “Russia 24” on Saturday.

Under the guise of healing the schism, Patriarch Bartholomew legalized the schism, “and now he is trying to force everyone to recognize this unlawful and anti-canonical act.”

Earlier, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople said that the ROC reacted ungratefully to “its benefactor”, criticizing the negative reaction of the ROC to the decision to give autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and also said that he “does not care” about such an attitude.