Dragana Trifkovic: Western crusade against Moscow

International conference: the Patriarchate of Constantinople as an instrument of politics: the destructive activity of Patriarch Bartholomew

Speech by Dragana Trifkovic, Director General of the Center for geostrategic studies

Honorable fathers, ladies and gentlemen

Welcome again to our conference.

First of all, I would like to note that today the Serbian Orthodox Church marks the transfer of the relics of St. Nikephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople.

St. Nicephorus, the Great hierarch of God, opposed the iconoclasts and Emperor Leo the Armenian himself, who therefore banished him to the island of Prokonisos. One of the most excellent Patriarchs of Constantinople suffered for the pious observance of his faith and holy icons by spending 13 years in exile before he was put to rest.

Western crusade to Moscow

Today we are talking about a completely different example, Patriarch Bartholomew, who, through his activity, shows disrespect for the faith and creates discord in Orthodoxy, although his position presupposes dedication and sacrifice that should serve the unity of the Orthodox Church.

It is obvious that the weakness of the character and ambition of Patriarch Bartholomew, the desire for special rights and privileges, contributed to the Constantinople Patriarchate becoming an instrument of politics and geostrategic policy. But the basis of such a position was acquired by the Patriarchate of Constantinople much earlier.

The conference called Identifying factors that destroy the church"I spoke of the attack on Orthodoxy as part of the geopolitical struggle of the West led by the United States against Russia. It is aimed at weakening the orthodox view on all levels from dogmatics to ethics and dividing the unity of the Orthodox Church in the territories of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, the Balkans, Central Asia and the Baltic states.

This thesis is confirmed by numerous statements and opinions of Western officials and scholars such as :

Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was an influential American strategist and national security adviser

I quote: "Communism is over and Orthodoxy is over."

Samuel Huntington, an American political scientist who in the mid-1990s published a theory of the clash of civilizations projecting a clash between Orthodox and Islamic civilizations.

Karl Bilt, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, said:

"Orthodoxy is more dangerous than Islamic fundamentalism and therefore represents the greatest danger to Western civilization."

In addition to statements and opinions of officials from which we can deduce a lot about the intentions of the West, declassified documents published by the CIA, but also "leaked" documents from WikiLeaks and other sources, as well as the testimonies of former military intelligence officials, contributed to the completion of this picture.

Чврст загрљај Константинопољске патријаршије и америчких обавештајних служби датира из периода Другог светског рата када је Аристоклис Спиру односно архиепископ Северне и Јужне Америке и потоњи патријарх Атинагора понудио 1942. године америчкој Канцеларији за стратешке службе, претходници ЦИА, своје услуге. Он је овој канцеларији упутио писмо следеће садржине: „Имам три епископа, три стотине свештеника и велику и обимну организацију. Они нису само мени на располагању, већ и вама. Можете им заповедати да реше било који ваш проблем. Ваша упутства ће се извршавати прецизно и без непотребних питања“.

Pragmatic Americans could have been more than satisfied with the opportunities offered, which they immediately incorporated into their geostrategic plans. Archbishop Athenagoras, who also had US citizenship, was assessed as very reliable from the aspect of achieving American interests. Declassified CIA document of 11. August 1948. he documents the details of Operation Athenagoras, whose goal was to force patriarch Maximus V to resign and to bring Athenagoras in his place upon the blessing of US President Truman.

Patriarch Maximus V had only two years before become head of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, but due to great pressure from the Greek royal government and the Turkish authorities, he was forced to step down under the pretext of illness. Greek and Turkish authorities accused patriarch Maximus of Russophilia and even of sovietophilia, especially for the trip of a delegation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the autocephaly of the Russian Orthodox Church. However, such accusations were unfounded because patriarch Maxim V did not intend to renounce his "ecumenical" prerogatives or give them to the Russian Church, which is confirmed by the fact that he prevented the intention of the Moscow Patriarchate to hold a pan-Orthodox conference in Moscow with the status of an ecumenical council.

In any case, patriarch Maximus V, as someone who defended an independent position, did not fit into the geostrategic plans of the United States and was therefore forced to take refuge. In his place, Patriarch Athenagoras was brought to the head of the Constantinople Patriarchate, who landed in Istanbul on the plane of US President Harry Truman, where he was immediately issued a Turkish passport after arriving at the airport.

PHOTO: International Conference: the Patriarchate of Constantinople as an instrument of politics: the destructive activity of Patriarch Bartholomew

What did the U.S. gain from Operation Athenagoras?

First of all, the animosities and normalized relations between the two very opposing states of Greece and Turkey were pacified by directing hostility towards Moscow in the form of the fight against communism. Patriarch Athenagoras was a staunch anti-communist. In November 1948. speaking on Boston radio, he said: "America is helping Turkey and Greece because it knows that these two countries must fight a wild beast that threatens humanity."

During the time of Patriarch Athenagoras, the Patriarchate of Constantinople completely changed its approach and action in several directions.

The first was to claim a higher status than that set out in the framework of the Treaty of Lausanne. The deal was signed on 24. July 1923. the years between the Republic of Turkey and the Entente powers prevented Turkey's intention to remove the Constantinople Patriarchate from Istanbul, largely thanks to the efforts of Great Britain.

The then Patriarch Meletia took office largely thanks to English support, had close contacts with the ruling circles of Great Britain and, in fact, was the conductor of English interests in Istanbul. The Turks relented, believing that the removal of the Constantinople Patriarchate risked encouraging a wider unification of the Orthodox world against Turkey. The head of the Turkish delegation wrote in a telegram: "the debates over the Patriarchate ended with our open declaration that the Patriarchate will not have any political or administrative power or privileges, and we do not assume any obligations other than those described in the legislation relating to national minorities".

From now on, relations between the Turkish government and Phanar became an internal affair of the independent Turkish state. However, Patriarch Athenagoras pursued a policy of anti-canonical interference in the affairs of the Autocephalous Orthodox churches: including interference in the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church in Finland, the Russian and Serbian churches in Poland, Czechoslovakia, the United States and Western Europe.

Another direction was the establishment of ecumenical dialogue as a transitional stage towards unionization, i.e. violent or diplomatic transfer of the Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church under the pretext of unity.

At the beginning of the 1920s, Patriarch Athenagoras, as an associate of patriarch Meletios of Constantinople, participated in the process of creating the Ecumenical Commission "faith and church order".

Upon his accession to Phanar, Patriarch Athenagoras continued his efforts to reconcile with the Vatican and initiated the first meeting with the pope of Rome since the Great Schism of 1054. years. He actively participated in the work of the World Council of churches and founded it in 1955. the Permanent Representation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in this organization (SSC) in Chambezi (Switzerland).

The meeting between the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope of Rome took place in January 1964. when Patriarch Athenagoras met with Pope Paul VI in Jerusalem, the anathemas that had existed since 1054 were abolished. years.

Athenagoras also made efforts to reduce the Russian presence on the Holy Mountain. At the urging of the State Department, he did not allow Russian monks to settle in the Russian Monastery of St. Panteleimon, waiting for the monastery to empty completely. Russian Patriarch Alexy II requested it in 1957. to welcome ten young monks to the Russian Monastery on the Holy Mountain. Patriarch Athenagoras forwarded the letter to the U.S. consul, after which Alan Dulles, director of the CIA personally telegraphed Istanbul that a positive response to this letter did not suit the interests of the West in the region.

The third course of action of Patriarch Athenagoras was towards modernization, i.e. the implementation of a series of radical reforms of the Church aimed at changing the attitude of the Church towards the world, towards Catholicism and other faiths, as well as towards the World Council of churches. He proposed that the use of obsolete languages of worship be reconstituted, as well as the rules that bishops could not marry, he proposed major liturgical reforms, and so on.

Continuity in the destructive activities of the Patriarchate of Constantinople

All the above directions of action are also characteristic of the successors of Patriarch Athenagoras in Phanar, patriarch Demetrius I, and especially of Patriarch Bartholomew who launched the Special Operation "schism". This confirms the fact that anti-communist activity was only a pretext in the US geopolitical struggle with Moscow and that it continues with a direct attack on Orthodoxy. It is necessary to state in which acts Bartholomew confirms the continuity of the activities of the Patriarchate of Constantinople as an instrument of Washington and London policy.

Patriarch Bartholomew appropriates to himself rights and competencies that do not belong to him. He ignores international agreements, most notably the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. the Patriarchate of Constantinople has no political or administrative power, but its competences apply to the Greek minority in Turkey and are subject to the laws of the Republic of Turkey. Bartholomew exceeded his powers and interfered in inter-state relations as well as in the internal affairs of other states. The granting of autocephaly to the proxy Orthodox Church of Ukraine, against the will of the majority of believers in Ukraine, is an example of the grossest interference in the internal affairs of other states with catastrophic consequences for Ukraine and for the whole orthodoxy. This is a unique example in the history of the Church. However, Patriarch Bartholomew did not stop there, but directly involved himself in political affairs. Last summer, Bartholomew participated in a" peace conference " in Switzerland called by Vladimir Zelensky, and signed a document called the Declaration on Ukraine, along with representatives of other participating states. After that, the issue of the international legal and state status of Patriarch Bartholomew was raised, and the Turkish Foreign Ministry requested an explanation from the organizers of the summit on Ukraine in Switzerland, regarding the presence of Patriarch Bartholomew among the signatories of the joint declaration. After that, the Swiss Foreign Ministry updated the list of signatories of the final document and removed Bartholomew's name from it.

Thus, guided by the interests of the United States, Bartholomew, nicknamed the CIA patriarch, incites internal and inter-state conflicts, while causing great damage to Orthodoxy. In addition to Ukraine, his activities on creating schisms in Orthodoxy and interference in jurisdiction are present in the Balkans, the Baltic states, Western Europe, America, etc.

Patriarch Bartholomew's more than close relations with the Vatican and their joint action towards the subjugation of Orthodoxy became more than obvious. In the example of Ukraine, it can be clearly seen that the granting of Tomos to the non-canonical church, with the Prohibition of the activities of the canonical Church, is only a transitional phase towards unification with the Vatican and its realization of the centuries-old aspiration of papal primacy. However, the Patriarchate of Constantinople is working on a broad scale, bringing discord and confusion not only in Ukraine.

Joint celebration of Easter 2025. the Year in the Organization of the Vatican and Phanar, which is supposed to symbolize the beginning of the false unification of Christians, is the first step on that path. The implementation of the entire project is planned to be completed by 2054, exactly a thousand years after the Great Schism.

One of the fundamental differences between the Orthodox Church which has preserved the tradition of original Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church which has fallen into heresy is who governs the Church. By deciding that among the Patriarchs of the Orthodox churches he was not the first among equals, but the first without equals, he trampled on Orthodox principles and traditions by assigning himself the role of eastern Pope. Behind the schismatic action of Patriarch Bartholomew, who divided the Orthodox world family, there are novelties in the teaching of the Church, which aim to destroy the existing canonical foundations. Some of them are the abolition of the rule that granting autocephaly to a particular local church is possible only with the consent of all generally recognized local churches. Then the Patriarchate of Constantinople took for itself the exclusive right of initiative in convening Pan-Orthodox councils and other significant pan-Orthodox events, accepted co-operation with representatives of other faiths, even imposing LGBT propaganda and so on. These deviations from Orthodox ecclesiology led to a deep crisis of world Orthodoxy.

Where is the solution?

I think that the Orthodox community should be united in rejecting the new concepts introduced by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and in condemning the illegal and unlawful actions of Patriarch Bartholomew. Only the resolution of the resulting crisis will require in the future the organization and convening of a pan-Orthodox Council at which decisions should be made on overcoming the created problems as well as on the mechanisms of protecting the Church from negative influences. I would like to remind you that Mr. Valavanidis and I made a public appeal last year in which we stated that "we assess that there has been an alarming moment when the survival of Christ's Orthodox Church has been seriously questioned, which is why we consider it necessary and urgent to convene a Pan-Orthodox or local council in the most populous to the Orthodox Church, in order to take adequate steps towards the survival of orthodoxy as a whole."

I fully support the position of His Grace Metropolitan of Zaporizhia and Melitopol Luke that it is extremely important to strengthen informational opposition to the politicization of church life. I think that social organizations and people's diplomacy can play a big role in encouraging this. I very positively assess our joint successes on this issue in recent years and I would like to thank all organizations and individuals who have contributed to the organization and realization of international conferences, which have dealt with this problem. I especially want to thank Mr. Diogenis Valavanidis, president of the Center for the protection of Christian identity, who has made great efforts to achieve results.

I would also appeal to all those involved in the protection of human rights to pay special attention to the protection of religious rights that are at Extreme Risk. It is amazing that there has been a lack of energetic action by The Defenders of human rights in the situation when the laws on the Prohibition of canonical churches are adopted and when persecution and terror is carried out against the members of the Church. The most dramatic example is Ukraine where organized extremists break into temples while state authorities arrest the clergy. Metropolitan Luka who addressed US is under house arrest, while Metropolitan Arsenije is in a prison cell with other detainees. There are many examples of this, and many human rights defenders simply ignore it.

After the last conference in Bulgaria, we sent a letter with the conclusions of the participants of the conference concerning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Serbian Orthodox Church to over 100 addresses in the UN, EU, Council of Europe, OSCE, USA and other international institutions and diplomatic missions. We didn't get a single answer. This all speaks of the malfunction of international institutions and should be of deep concern to us. However, regardless of these circumstances, I am confident that our joint efforts can change a lot.

Thanks for your attention.

You can watch the entire conference video.:

Source: Center for Geostrategic Studies

27. March 2025.