“Patriarch Bartholomew appropriates rights and jurisdictions that do not belong to him” – Dragana Trifkovic

At the international conference, Dragana Trifkovic, the Director General of the Center for Geostrategic Studies, stated that Patriarch Bartholomew “appropriates rights and jurisdictions that do not belong to him.” She emphasized that the “Ecumenical Patriarchate does not have political or administrative authority” according to the Lausanne Agreement of 1923. The report of the director was published on geostrategy.club.

“The granting of autocephaly to the so-called Orthodox Church of Ukraine against the will of the majority of believers in Ukraine is an example of gross interference in the internal affairs of other states with disastrous consequences both for Ukraine and for the whole of Orthodoxy,” Trifkovic pointed out.

In Trifkovic’s view, Patriarch Bartholomew “did not stop at this” and directly intervened in politics by participating in a “peace conference” organized by Volodymyr Zelensky. She emphasized that the signing of the “Declaration on Ukraine” at the summit in Switzerland raised the issue of the international legal status of Patriarch Bartholomew. In response to a request from the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland removed the name of Patriarch Bartholomew from the final version of the document.

It is also worth noting that on March 27, 2025, Patriarch Bartholomew, for the second time this year, participated in a Muslim Iftar. This time, the solemn dinner during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan was held in the company of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The dinner took place amid ongoing anti-presidential protests in Turkey.