Russian patriarch Alexi II suspended relations with Constantinople’s patriarch Bartholomew I in February. The move came after Bartholomew announced that the Orthodox church in Estonia would be autonomous and under his supervision rather than that of the Moscow-based church.
The Estonian Orthodox church, with only 84 congregations, had been overseen by the Russian patriarchate since the Soviet Union annexed the country in 1940. Bartholomew is the ecumenical patriarch of the church, based in Istanbul.
But while he may have traditional primacy, Bartholomew governs comparatively few adherents. Islam is the dominant religion in his local jurisdiction.
Alexi, though, controls a church of 100 million, half of all Eastern Orthodoxy. For the first time in its 1,008-year history, the Russian Orthodox church on February 23 omitted Eucharistic prayers for the patriarch of Constantinople.
While the controversy has not ignited into a full schism, it may if Orthodox national churches around the world take sides.
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