For those interested in the diplomatic nuances of church relations, this caught our eye recently:<\/p>\n

Russian Orthodox Church, Dept. of External Church Relations<\/a><\/p>\n

Primate of the Church of Constantinople extends condolences over tragedy in Moscow Metro<\/strong><\/p>\n

A telegram was received by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia from His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople extending condolences over the terrorist attacks on March 29 in Moscow Metro.<\/p>\n

The Primate of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople assured Patriarch Kirill of his prayers for the repose of the souls of the victims, for consolation of their families and protection of homes, cities and the country in the future against such attacks and actions.<\/p>\n

\u2018With prayer for peace in the world we pray together with you, dear Brother, to the Lord walking to voluntary passions that He may give you all to celebrate the Holy Pascha in peace\u2019, His Holiness Bartholomew stated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note the designation Primate of the Orthodox Church of Constantinople<\/em>, no “Ecumenical” or any other title that would indicate an elevation above any other patriarch. Intentional? An oversight? We know Moscow is not taken by Constantinople’s universalist claims and this most recent use conforms to the ancient practice. We’ll see. (While we are at it, I wish we would find some other term than “primate.”)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those interested in the diplomatic nuances of church relations, this caught our eye recently: Russian Orthodox Church, Dept. of External Church Relations Primate of the Church of Constantinople extends condolences over tragedy in Moscow Metro A telegram was received by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia from His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[296],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6209"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6209"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6213,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6209\/revisions\/6213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}