State Department awards ROC priests who defected to Phanar’s jurisdiction

Tony Blinken's tribune. Photo: Drew Angerer

The U.S. Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, presented an award "for the defence of religious freedom" to a group of Orthodox clergymen from Lithuania and Belarus, defrocked by the Russian Orthodox Church, but restored in their priesthood by the Phanar, reports the website of the State Department.

Blinken awarded seven clergymen (5 priests and two deacons) from Lithuania, and two priests from Belarus. According to the Department of State, they suffered "because they vigorously and publicly condemned Russia’s war against Ukraine."

Recall, several clergy of the Church of Lithuania in May 2022 appealed to the Phanar to accept them into its jurisdiction. The Primate of the Orthodox Church in Lithuania Metropolitan Innocent of Vilna and Lithuania called them schismatics. They were subsequently banned from the prieshood and defrocked.

In February 2023, the Phanar reinstated them in their dignity and accepted them into its jurisdiction.

In March 2023, Patriarch Bartholomew and the Lithuanian prime minister signed a document on the establishment of an exarchate of the Phanar in Lithuania.

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