This will be brief.

By now, everyone knows about the Moscow Patriarchate’s flagrantly uncanonical ecclesiastical invasion of the Patriarchate of Alexandria.

For context, Alexandria has sole canonical jurisdiction over the African continent. This hasn’t prevented Moscow from recently attempting to establish a presence in Africa in open competition with Alexandria, clearly hand-in-glove with the Kremlin’s geopolitical agenda there. Given that Orthodoxy in Africa is primarily a village phenomenon, one wonders how many Russian immigrants have settled in the villages of Africa. 

Seldom do we get the opportunity to see how Moscow’s shenanigans look on the ground.

Earlier today, an Orthodox  Facebook user in a small village in Kenya congratulated a friend of his for being flown to Moscow to be ordained a deacon. When questioned by another Facebook user, he declared that Alexandria had lost all claim to legitimacy by supporting the “schismatic” Ukrainian Church.

One wonders if free trips to Moscow are contingent on supporting Russia’s genocidal invasion of Ukraine.