Patriarch Theodore of Alexandria threatened Russian Orthodox priests Georgy Maksimov and Andrey Novikov with “sanctions” if they do not stop their missionary activities in Africa, reports Romfea.

Patriarch Theodore urged the clergy to “return to church order, respecting the canonical law of the church” and immediately stop worship services with parishioners, meetings with the clergy, and “canonical offenses condemned by the Ecumenical Councils.”

Otherwise, “the sanctions provided for by the above rules will be applied immediately.”

Finally, the Patriarch calls on all African clergy, “tempted by the material promises of the aforementioned clergy, to return to the bosom of the mother church, which never cultivated ethnophyletism, worked only with self-sacrifice and self-denial to spread Orthodoxy in Africa, emphasizing, in particular, that the Patriarchate will continue martyrdom” , – quotes the resource of Patriarch Theodore.