The disease didn't help

The participants of the working group at the meeting on Wednesday “unanimously expressed their condemnation of the actions of Bishop Diomede,” the secretary of the working group of the Council, which considered the “Diomede” issue, Bishop Mark of Yegoryevsk, told an Interfax-Religion correspondent. RIA Novosti has more specific information . “The working group voted to depose Bishop Diomede,” a source at the Council told the agency.

At a briefing on Wednesday, the head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, said that the absence of Bishop Diomede at the Council had no valid reasons. According to him, Bishop Diomede referred to “indisposition.” “But the documents that he presented, from a legal point of view, are not evidence of a real illness,” said Metropolitan Kirill.

The decision on the future bishop will be made by the Council. “We need to be patient and wait for Friday, when the Council... will evaluate his actions,” Bishop Mark said, urging journalists not to stir up passions around this issue. “There is no need to engage in partisanship and anticipate council decisions,” he emphasized.