The first step to heal the current situation in world Orthodoxy would have to be a return to the position in which all Orthodox Churches were until 2018, when decisions were made conciliarly, and not individually. Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk said this in an interview with the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, according to the website of the DECR ROC.

“But it’s hard to imagine that the Patriarch of Constantinople would want to return to this. He now considers himself entitled to make individual decisions, without consulting other Churches, against their will and to their detriment. And the hierarchs of the Patriarchate of Constantinople keep repeating to us: “Ukrainian autocephaly is a fait accompli.” Well, since this is so, then the division in world Orthodoxy is also a fait accompli.

We mourn this separation. We pray for the understanding of both the Patriarch of Constantinople and those Primates and hierarchs who, under his pressure, recognized the schism,” the hierarch said.