MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE = BIZARRE MISHMASH
The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (the MP) can be accurately characterized as a bizarre mishmash of contradictions. The MP claims to uphold traditional Orthodoxy, yet it publishes vicious hit-pieces against the True Orthodox Christians. The MP claims to have a more reserved attitude towards ecumenism (than Constantinople), yet it has participated heavily in the ecumenical movement since the mid-1960s, including steering it in the direction of liberation theology and Marxism. The MP claims to be against papal supremacy, yet Patriarch Kirill's meeting and joint declaration with Pope Francis was conciliatory to this worst of popes. The MP claims to be against eastern papism in Constantinople, yet it is trying to make the Moscow Patriarch something like an East Slavic pope who is supreme over several unrelated nations. The MP claims to reject the Branch (Sister Church) Theory Heresy, yet it accepts the Heretical Sacraments Theory. Since the sacraments make the Church and the Church makes the sacraments, the Heretical Sacraments Heresy is a lesser form of the Sister Church Heresy. The MP claims to be against American interference in Constantinople and Poroshenko's interference in church life in Ukraine, yet it accepts Putin's interference and then proclaims Putin to be a "gift from God." The MP claims to condemn the murderous persecutions that Communists imposed on Christians, yet it also praises the pseudo-bishops and pseudo-patriarchs (like Sergius) who collaborated with the Communists in these persecutions. If there is an extreme, murderous dictator somewhere on earth, there is a good chance that the MP has given that murderer an award for good governance (!). The MP claims to be against Greek racism (and there is some real racism among the Constantinople hierarchs), but the MP oozes Great Russian chauvinism and denies the existence of other nations, like Ukraine (not "the" Ukraine, which implies it is only a border territory). The MP is correct that the new "autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine" is an uncanonical, secularizing body, yet the current MP is also uncanonical in origins (Stalinist, Sergianist origins) and it is a secularizing body, that persecutes the True Orthodox Christians, with the collaboration of the Vatican and the (former-)Communists.