“Of course, we will not turn off, we will not turn off from nowhere. Wherever we go, we will not go out from anywhere. There will be no waste in the African direction, we will only strengthen and expand,” Metropolitan Leonid said on the Vesti FM radio station, commenting on the plans of the exarchate.
He clarified that even if there are any changes in the position of Patriarch Theodore of Alexandria or the Patriarchate of Alexandria, who recognized the Ukrainian schismatics, then in The Russian Orthodox Church will “talk only from the position of what we already have, no one will give anything back.”
“It’s not just “there is no smoke without fire” — there is a terrible story here: people have already been brought to such a state that they are ready to wait for years and years, but not to return to the control of the Patriarchate of Alexandria. This is to what extent it was necessary to bring them! People are being kicked out of their homes. You can imagine: the indigenous, black population – they are driven out of the house by people who, by and large, rarely come to Africa, I am now talking about the Greek church establishment (the bishops of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, as a rule, are Greeks – approx. TASS), many of whom are not in their departments — they come to Africa for some big holidays, and then leave for Greece,” said Metropolitan Leonid.
He noted that in The Russian Orthodox Church “endured to the last”, hoping for two years for repentance and a change in the position of Patriarch Theodore and the hierarchs who supported him, but in the end “they realized that we simply have no right to abandon our brothers and sisters on that continent.”
“We must not let the schismatics triumph, we must stop and stop this bacchanalia,” the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church added.
Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa
On December 29, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church decided to form the Patriarchal Exarchate of Africa as part of the North African and South African dioceses. Archbishop Leonid (Gorbachev) of Yerevan and Armenia was appointed Patriarchal Exarch of Africa with the title “Klinsky”.
The North African Diocese includes the Stavropol (directly subordinate to the patriarch) parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. The diocese’s pastoral responsibility includes 31 countries of the continent. The South African diocese includes the Stavropol parish of the Russian Orthodox Church in South Africa, it will “cover” 23 states.