The Russians are coming!

I found this story rather amusing. Sort of a Red Dawn but with crosiers instead of Kalashnikovs.

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Moscow, October 26 (Interfax) - The Jerusalem Church is cautious about the Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission official says.

"Unfortunately, the Jerusalem Patriarchate is watchful about the Russian Church as our Church is very big and active," head of the Mission in Jerusalem Archimandrite Isidor (Minayev) said in his interview with Bogoslov.ru website.

According to him, when for example "a microscopic part of our Church - say, five our regional bishops, 30-50 priests, ten deacons and a full church of pilgrims come to a service to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre then Greek clerics from the Holy Sepulchre Fraternity don't understand what is going on: is that the whole Russian Church coming here?"

"We explain to them: it's only a small part of the Church, only people from a small province. And their whole Patriarchate has the same number of people. Thus, evaluating scales of great Russian territory and great number of our clerics, looking at the developing system of our church education, system of financing and charities, they are certainly scared," Father Isidor said.