On Thursday, November 3, Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem received a delegation from the Moscow Patriarchate headed by the head of the Department of External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Antony of Volokolamsk.
Part of the Russian delegation was Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, who until recently held the post of deputy head of the Department of External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church before leaving his post, which he held for more than 13 years. In particular, he was responsible for the ROC relations with other local Orthodox Churches, as well as for the “Ukrainian issue.”
Earlier, Russian “magi” with “gifts” visited Patriarch Theophilos of Jerusalem. And before that, he was visited by envoys from the FSB and the ambassador of the Russian Federation to Israel.
We previously reported that the Russian Orthodox Church hoped to earn the favor of Patriarch Theophilos, who was invited to the court of the Pentarchy, which had until April 18, 2022, to consider the anti-canonical schism committed by the Russian Orthodox Church in the Church of Alexandria.
