A Russian response to an exclusively Hellenic South East Asia

A few weeks ago Met. of Hong Kong spoke of the new missionary efforts of the Russian Church in Taipei, Taiwan as "schismatic" based on a number of factors of which the chief was an exclusive claim over South East Asia under the Patriarchate of Constantinople (see here). Considering the numerous other patriarchates already in existence in that area, this was a surprising statement. The below is a rebuttal from Deacon Georgiy Maksimov (many thanks to a reader for providing a translation from Russian).

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Regarding the violation of the Church Canons by Metropolitan Nectarios (Tsilis) in his actions related to the Patriarchal Metochion of the Russian Orthodox Church in Taiwan.

The root of problem, which led to these actions, is the new unorthodox idea about leadership and "primate" of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, as well as the subsequent idea that the whole world is in the possession of this local Church. In the Council of 2008 Russian Orthodox Church officially proclaimed that we don’t recognize this set of ideas. But, inspired by these ideas, bishops of the Patriarchate of Constantinople divided all the countries of Asia, America and West Europe among themselves and proclaim that it is their "canonical territory". This includes countries, were they don’t have even a single believer (for example, in Buthan, Laos, and Myanmar), which is an absurd in terms of the Canons of the Church. Metr. Nectarios thinks that Taiwan is in his possession, while nobody else besides his followers agrees with that.

Practically, for Taiwan he is a foreign bishop, similarly to Russian or any other bishops. Historically Russian Church established the first parish in Taiwan and began its mission on the island in 1901. While Greeks opened another parish in 2003, how can anyone claim that only their parish is canonical there? Why? Only because they think so? Metr. Nectarios in the same way and for the same reasons proclaimed the official mission of Antiochian Church in Philippines as schismatic, and he excommunicated the laypeople, who went to Antiochian parishes, to be "shismatics".

In fact, this is a crime according to the Church Canons. No one has a right to prohibit a member of one domestic Orthodox Church to visit another Orthodox Church, it is a grave sin and an indication of an erroneous ecclesiology vision. The Nomocanon states that, if any bishop or a priest imposes an excommunication on any Christian, who in fact has no guilt with respect to the Church Canons, the excommunicated person is not subject to any prosecution, while the excommunicator himself has to be excommunicated.

- Deacon Georgiy Maksimov