EDITOR’S NOTE (Nick Stamatakis). As our readers know, we have been discussing this issue for a long time. All available information today, as the “Ukraine peace talks” are about to start in Saudi Arabia, points to very strong Russian demands for: a) Complete respect of religious freedom in Ukraine and b) punishment of those who have committed crimes.  It is known that the Russians are quite meticulous when collecting evidence; this time they also have the help of international lawyers and others who have recorded all human rights violations.  The “Ukro-Nazis” will be punished, and UOC under Met. Onufriy will be restored to what it was before 2014. 

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source – spzh.eu

Archons of the Phanar: the last hope of the OCU?

Will the Archons of the Phanar Help Support the OCU under Trump? Photo: UOJ

At the end of January 2025, the speaker of the OCU, Yevstratiy Zorya, urged the believers of the UOC not to count too much on the help of the new US President Donald Trump in defending their rights to freedom of religion. Zorya noted that “it was during Trump’s first term that the Tomos was issued,” that the current US president favorably treats the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and that there are archons of the Phanar in Trump’s inner circle. Zorya also noted that “despite all the apparent piety of the adherents of the ideology of Rusmir, they constantly demonstrate their exclusive hope in princes and in the sons of men.”

We can’t say anything about the “adherents of the ideology of the Rusmir”, because they are not, but Zorya has given himself away with his head. The very mention of the role of the US State Department in creating the OCU project, the very statement that the archons are interacting with Trump, and the calculation of the US president’s good relations with the Patriarchate of Constantinople – what is this, if not hope for “princes and the sons of men”? What is this, if not recognition that the OCU could not have appeared without the efforts of the powerful of this world? What is this, if not hope that the archons surrounding Trump will be able to convince him of his assessment of the church situation in Ukraine?

Representatives of the new American government, even during the pre-election campaign, made many statements about the inadmissibility of restricting religious freedom in Ukraine. Both current President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and other officials who have already held high positions in the American administration, clearly and unequivocally stated that religious freedoms are being violated in Ukraine and that this is unacceptable. With the change of power in the United States, international support for the OCU project has significantly decreased. But there is a chance that the archons will still be able to order a word and present the situation in a favorable light for the OCU. Will it work?

What do the archons say?

And the archons have already begun to act. On January 28, 2025, the archon of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Panteleimon Boubouras, who has a business in Odessa, published a statement calling on people not to trust information about the persecution of the UOC in Ukraine . This statement was addressed to the clergy of the Church of Greece in response to a letter from 40 monasteries in Greece and Mount Athos that supported the UOC . In that letter, the monks told a lot: about the seizure of temples, and about the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of a law banning the UOC, and about the bloody massacre in Cherkasy, where the cathedral was seized. Today’s persecution of the UOC was compared to what happened under Hitler and Stalin.

Among those who signed this letter are the abbots of the Athos monasteries of Xiropotamos, Dohiar, Caracal, Philofey, Konstamonite, etc. Specific facts were cited, words of support were spoken to the Christians of Ukraine. In response, the archon claims that all this is untrue, there is no persecution, and the UOC is full of agents of Russian special services. P. Boubouras’ statement contains neither facts nor evidence that would confirm the accusations. For example, he states: “Many hierarchs demand that Metropolitan Onuphry begin negotiations with Patriarch Bartholomew in order to restore ties with Constantinople.” If the “hierarchs” of the OCU are meant, then we can agree with this, but, apparently, we are talking about the hierarchs of the UOC. And we have not heard a single similar statement from them. On the contrary, parishes, monasteries, and dioceses hold meetings and massively confirm their loyalty to the UOC and its Primate, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry. Such a reversal of the situation, when white is called black and vice versa, vividly characterizes the archon.

However, this is not the first time. Let us recall how the head of the order of archons of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Anthony Liberakis, speaking in May 2024 at a conference in Athens, stated that “the Ecumenical Patriarch in Ukraine, by signing the Tomos on autocephaly, has ensured freedom of religion for 43 million Ukrainians .” Let him tell about this freedom to Metropolitan Arseny of Sviatohirsk, who is suffering in prison, let him tell about the beaten Cherkasy bishop, who was diagnosed with a concussion after being hit on the head with a stick. Let him tell about it to other defenders of the Archangel Michael Cathedral in Cherkasy, to the communities that were forcibly expelled by representatives of the OCU from their temples!

Unfortunately, all this is typical of the archons of the Phanar. You can learn more about who the archons are, whom they serve and whose interests they defend in the article “Who do the archons of the Patriarchate of Constantinople serve” . Briefly, the archons are wealthy Greeks who serve the Patriarchate of Constantinople and to some extent influence its activities. The list of criteria for selecting members of the order of archons does not include requirements for moral qualities, but instead there are requirements for loyalty to the Patriarchate of Constantinople (not Orthodoxy as such) and the ability and opportunity to benefit the Phanar. The archons fulfill this purpose to the fullest. But do they have as much influence in the Trump team as Ivan (Evstratiy) Zorya hopes?

Who is the main lobbyist of the OCU in the States?

Let’s start with the statement of the speaker of the OCU that this organization was created during the first presidency of Trump. As is known, the main lobbyist for the creation of the OCU at that time was the head of the State Department, Mike Pompeo. He negotiated with the Phanar, the administration of President P. Poroshenko, traveled to Kyiv, met with Serhiy (Epiphany) Dumenko and openly stated that his department fully supports the OCU. More about this in the article “Uncle Sam’s Clergy: What is the Role of the State Department in the Creation of the OCU” .

Many hoped that the main lobbyist of the OCU from the State Department, Mike Pompeo, would now join the new Trump administration and occupy some very high position. But the opposite happened. Donald Trump, who has not yet taken office as president, publicly stated that Pompeo has no place in his administration . Many political analysts believe that the reason for Trump’s sharp refusal to take Pompeo on the team is that he did not support Trump during the 2020 presidential election, when, as Trump claims, his victory was stolen. For the same reason, we do not see former Vice President Mike Pence in Trump’s entourage. And if Trump is significantly distancing himself from those people who did not support him in a difficult moment, then what about those who have consistently supported the Democratic Party and Joe Biden personally for many years?

Political orientation of the Phanariotes

On August 20, 2020, the head of the Archdiocese of the Phanar in the United States, Archbishop Elpidophoros (Lambriniadis), who is the chief spiritual director of the Order of Archons of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, during a video address to the participants of the Democratic National Convention of Democracy convention called for support for Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential elections of the country. He read a prayer, which he then posted on his then-Twitter: “We pray for the good of our people and their future. We pray that you shed the light of your face on the delegates of this convention and on Vice President Joe Biden, so that he may occupy the highest office in the land.” Can anyone think that Trump will forget this?

And here is what the Business Standard wrote immediately after Biden was elected US president in 2020: “Biden knows how to heal and unite, said a close family friend of the 77-year-old former US vice president, Michael Karloutsos, in an interview with PTI. <…> Michael and his father, Father Alex Karloutsos, who plays a key role in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and has international authority in the church, have been close friends of the Biden family for almost four decades, since he was a senator .” Protopresbyter Alex Karloutsos is considered the informal leader of the Order of Archons of the Phanar and actually leads it. He supported Biden in every way during the election campaign, and after winning the election called him “a leader capable of healing and uniting America.” At the same time, Biden was already “marrying” homosexuals at his home and in every way promoting the ideology of gender, LGBT, and abortion. How can the Church support such a person?

But in addition to his long-standing friendship with the informal leader of the Order of Archons, Alex Karloutos, Joe Biden has a long-standing friendship with Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. This relationship began long before Biden became president and even vice president under Barack Obama in 2009–2016. Having taken up the post of vice president of the United States, Biden twice made official visits to the head of the Phanar at his residence: in December 2011 and in November 2014. Before that, no American politician of such a level had visited the Phanar. And in 2015, Biden received the Patriarch Athenagoras Human Rights Award, established by the Order of Archons of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Council of Archons called D. Biden “an ardent supporter of religious freedom for the Ecumenical Patriarchate.”

Archbishop Demetrius, then head of the archdiocese of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in America, said of Biden’s award: “Vice President Biden demonstrates again and again his commitment to the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the free and selfless spiritual mission it carries out.”

The liberal agenda of Phanar and the Democratic Party

But one should not assume that the ties between the US Democratic Party and the Patriarchate of Constantinople (including the American Archdiocese and the Order of Archons) are limited only to the personal friendship of their leaders. Everything is much more serious and deeper. In January 2020, the Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople approved the document “For the Life of the World: Towards the Social Ethos of the Orthodox Church” . It reflects the Phanar’s view of the modern world. But if we look at this document and compare it with the program documents of the US Democratic Party, we will see that they reflect a very similar ideology: liberalism, ecumenism, ensuring the rights of various minorities, etc.

Everyone knows that the US Democratic Party and personally D. Biden are active supporters of the ideology of LGBT, abortion, gender, etc. From the point of view of the Holy Scriptures, this is not just a sin, but an abomination: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman: it is an abomination” (Lev. 18, 22). But here is what the Phanariot hierarchs write in the document “For the Life of the World…”: “§19 We live in an era when sexuality is increasingly understood as a personal destiny and even a private matter of a person. Numerous socio-political discussions in the world are devoted to various demands and needs of heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual and other sexual “identities”. <…> It should also be taken into account that the fundamental right of every person, which no state or civil authority can violate, is the right not to be persecuted or oppressed on the basis of sexuality . ”

And not a word about the Bible’s condemnation of these vices, nor a word about the unacceptability of LGBT ideology for the Church.

Who now remembers the BLM (Black Lives Matter) movement in America? After all, these protests were one of the main factors in Trump’s defeat in the 2020 elections. The American Archdiocese of Phanar and personally Elpidophoros (Lambriniadis) actively supported this movement. The latter even participated in the BLM march . This is despite the fact that BLM activists publicly burned dozens of Bibles and several Christian churches . Commenting on his participation in the BLM movement, Archbishop Elpidophoros said that, “coming from Constantinople,” he has a certain “heritage” of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, “which, especially during the patriarchate of Bartholomew,” places a very strong emphasis on “social issues, the environment, human equality, human rights, and democracy.” But this is 100% the agenda of the US Democratic Party!

Also, speaking about the adherence of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in the USA to the liberal ideology professed by the Democratic Party, one cannot fail to mention such an action by Archbishop Elpidophoros as the baptism of the adopted children of a homosexual couple in Greece in 2022. This event was advertised in all available ways and was intended to express solidarity with the then US President D. Biden and show how far the Patriarchate of Constantinople can go in implementing the liberal agenda.

Conclusions

Now let’s return to Ivan (Evstratiy) Zori’s statement that they have an archon in Trump’s entourage, that the US president shook hands with Elpidophoros (Lambriniadis), and that the UOC should not count on the protection of its rights from the American administration. Let’s ask the question: would the OCU have appeared at all without the participation of American officials? Would the OCU have recognized the Churches of Greece, Alexandria, and Cyprus if State Department officials had not conducted tough explanatory work with them? Would Serhiy (Epiphany) Dumenko have received such a portion of political support without a nod from the US?

There is only one possible answer to all these rhetorical questions – no. So, without this political and diplomatic resource, the OCU is facing difficult times. That is why Zorya is clinging to the archons of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, like a straw. After all, in the eyes of the international community, and even more so in the eyes of the Local Orthodox Churches, the OCU has discredited itself with mass seizures of churches, violence, deception, and constant interference in the politics of not only Ukraine but also other countries (remember at least Dumenko’s statement regarding Georgia). There is only one hope for the archons. They will try, they will explain to everyone, they will tell the version of what is happening in Ukraine that suits the OCU. Only now the true Church is asserting itself and does not live by this at all.

As for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Zorya is right, one should not hope for “princes, for the sons of men.” Trump, like all politicians, has no permanent friends and permanent enemies, everything depends on the situation. But to date, despite severe violations of rights and severe psychological pressure, not a single bishop or monastery has betrayed the UOC. A very small number of priests and a small number of believers have joined the OCU. And this was when friends of the Patriarchate of Constantinople were in power in Washington. It is worth thinking that even under Trump, whether he will help restore freedom of religion in Ukraine or not, the loyalty of Orthodox Christians to God and the Church will not change.