Russian bank cards are given to the African clerics of the Patriarchate of Alexandria who switch to the Moscow Patriarchate in the so-called “African Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church”. This was told by the Ukrainian theologian Archimandrite Kirill (Govorun), who attended an international conference in Sweden dedicated to the crises in world Orthodoxy. The first session was dedicated to Ukraine and Georgia, and the second to Africa. A participant from Africa gave a report on how the “African Exarchate” was formed. According to him, the Russian state needs a church structure in Africa to facilitate the resolution of political and business issues with local authorities: “In Africa, people in religious clothes have great authority and the door of every office opens for them. The Kremlin opens some of these doors with the help of people in cassocks”. At the same time, the priests of the Russian Orthodox Church acted as recruiters of local men for the war with Ukraine: “These people also indirectly or directly recruit local people to go to Russia. The locals trust them because ‘people in cassocks don’t give bad advice.’ So they go and then some end up at the front.”
A participant in the conference told the story of an Orthodox seminarian who went to Russia to enter a seminary, but there they took his passport and began to prepare him for the front: “He found out in time what they were preparing for him and managed to escape.”
It also became clear that African clergy who leave the Patriarchate of Alexandria and switch to the Russian Orthodox Church are issued a bank card, which, however, is not in their name: “Those who switch from the Patriarchate of Alexandria to the Moscow Patriarchate are given a bank card, on which they receive 200 euros every month. However, the card is not issued in their name, but to Russian organizations. One cleric even had a card with Prigozhin’s name on it. This makes these people highly dependent and, moreover, allows for the misuse of funds allocated for Africans. Adherents of local religious cults or confessions that are not even Christian, register with the Orthodox clergy in order to receive a bank card. Meanwhile, more principled Orthodox Christians, disappointed with such missionary methods, switch to other confessions.”
Ultimately, this inevitably leads to disillusionment with Orthodoxy and destroys the fruits of the Orthodox mission on the African continent.
