Sergei Lavrov said that he is behind the friction around the All -Orthodox Council

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who spoke at the All -Russian Youth Educational Forum "Territory of meanings", said that the reason for the disagreements around the All -Orthodox Council was an attempt to split into the Orthodox world from the outside.

"In the last All -Orthodox Council, which was held in Crete, several churches did not participate, including the Russian Orthodox Church, due to the fact that the final documents were not agreed," the interfax -religion portal the Words of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation quoted.

Meanwhile, as the minister noted, the real reason for the non -participation of a number of churches was an attempt to make a split from the outside into Orthodoxy.

“The real reason is that there are many people who want outside the Orthodox world, primarily using the crisis in Ukraine and anti -Russian rhetoric in order to damage the positions of the Russian Orthodox Church,” added Lavrov.

Earlier in July, the Holy Synod of the Russian Church decided that the cathedral held in Crete on June 20-25 became an important event, but noted that it could not be considered as an all -Orthodox, and the documents adopted on it - as expressing a general legal consensus. The documents discussed at the cathedral, after their receipt, was decided to transfer to the study of the Synodal Bible-Bogoslovskiy commission.

As already reported, the Bulgarian , Antioch , Georgian , Serbian and Russian churches advocated the transfer of the cathedral to resolve the disagreements and finalize the projects of its documents. However, the Patriarchate of Constantinople, responsible for the organization of the cathedral, rejected the initiative and insisted on it in the intended time. As a result, churches representing the minority of the episcopate, clergy and believers of the Orthodox world participated in the forum.

At the same time, the head of the department of external church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Ilarion, in an interview with Interfax-religion, stated that if the cathedral in this situation would still take place, "he would not have an all-Orthodox nature and authority."

Participants in the Cretan Cathedral discussed six topics: relations of the Orthodox Church with the rest of the Christian world, post, marriage, church mission in the modern world, nourishing the Orthodox in the diaspora, methods of proclaiming the autonomy of Orthodox churches. They also accepted the message.

The All -Orthodox Council has not been convened for more than a thousand years and has been preparing for more than half a century.