The proceedings of the Holy Eparchial Synod of the Archdiocese of Australia commenced yesterday, Tuesday, 20 January 2026, as it convened in an extraordinary Session under the presidency of His Eminence Archbishop Makarios of Australia.
Following the opening prayer, the Minutes of the previous Session were ratified and, thereafter, the Holy Synod proceeded to the examination of the matters included on the Agenda.
In continuation of the unprecedented attack by the Press Office of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), aimed at striking His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the Holy Eparchial Synod condemns the unholy, unbecoming, and false accusations hurled against the venerable Head of the Church, with the sole purpose of diminishing the authority and moral standing of His All-Holiness and of legitimising, in the eyes of public opinion, the well-known machinations and deceitful practices directed against the Mother Holy Great Church of Christ and the unity of the Orthodox Church.
This immoral attack does not merely constitute the culmination of a rhetoric of hatred and duplicity against the Ecumenical Patriarch, but also exposes the Patriarchate of Moscow, which is now openly presented as an appendage of the state apparatus and an instrument of the Kremlin’s foreign policy in service of the ideology of the so-called “Russian World.”
His Eminence Archbishop Makarios of Australia and the Holy Eparchial Synod continually pray for His All-Holiness and for the unhindered continuation of his martyric ministry at the helm of the Holy Great Church of Christ, which knows only how to sacrifice itself and to benefit the Local Churches throughout the world, as it did pre-eminently also for the Church of Russia, only to receive in return the fruits of ingratitude and thanklessness.