I “blame” Bartholomew against the Russian Orthodox Church for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The Ecumenical Patriarch said Wednesday from Vilnius, Lithuania that the Russian Church bears a share of responsibility for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while declaring himself ready to help in Russia’s post-war “spiritual renaissance.”

Bartholomew’s comments are a rebuke to Russian Patriarch Kirill, whose full blessing for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has caused friction in the Orthodox Church worldwide.

Bartholomew, who in 2019 angered Moscow by granting the Autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, said the Russian authorities were using the Church as an “instrument for their strategic goals”.

“The Church and state leadership in Russia collaborated in the crime of aggression and share responsibility for the crimes committed as a result of aggression, such as the shocking kidnapping of Ukrainians,” he told a conference held in the Lithuanian parliament.

Last week, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, charging him with the war crime of illegally evicting hundreds of Ukrainians. Russia says the children were taken from Ukraine for their own safety. He denies committing rights violations in Ukraine.

“Our interfaith dialogue must focus on ways to resist and neutralize the ability of the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate to undermine unity and theologically legitimize criminal behavior,” Bartholomew stressed.

The Russian Orthodox Church had no immediate comment.

The Ecumenical Patriarch is considered “first among equals” in the Orthodox Church, which has 260 million believers worldwide, about 100 million of them in Russia.

“The mother church of Constantinople she is ready to help her children in Ukraine and Russia once again, as it has done many times in the past,” he said.

“It is our common Christian duty to use the forces of dialogue to bring our Russian brothers and sisters back to our community of shared values,” he added, stressing the need for “spiritual rebirth” in both Russia and Ukraine.

At the end of January, the Ecumenical Patriarch declared that the granting of the Autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has nothing to do with geopolitical facts and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, direct or indirect.

As he stated then, the war is artificially connected by the Church of Russia with the Ukrainian Autocephalous to cover its responsibilities and its great ambitions. “She was the one who deepened the gap between Ukrainians and Russians and not the Ukrainian Autocephaly that was given to the trying Ukrainian people. Russia’s reaction stems from an attempt to impose on the Ukrainian people and from the absence of a healthy ecclesiastical conscience.”

In fact, he pointed out at the time that the Church of Constantinople gave a helping hand to Russia to solve the Ukrainian problem, but the efforts were fruitless, with the fault of the Russian side, which, however, does not admit it.