“Get Out of Africa”: Bishop of Tanzania Has Accused the russian orthodox church of Bribery and Schism

Bishop Chrysostomos of Bukoba and Western Tanzania, who belongs to the Patriarchate of Alexandria, has publicly accused the russian orthodox church of bribing local clergy and deliberately causing a schism within African Orthodoxy. He called on moscow’s emissaries to leave the continent, describing their activities as an attempt to buy what cannot be bought – the faith of millions of African Christians.

According to the Bishop, clergymen of the russian orthodox church are questioning the authority of the Patriarch of Alexandria and attempting to impose their own vision of Christianity on African communities as the only correct one. Chrysostomos directly accused representatives of moscow of boasting of their supposedly exclusive understanding of the Christian faith and presenting “russian piety” as the sole true model of Christian devotion, while ignoring the centuries-old tradition of the Church of Alexandria on the continent. The Bishop pointed out that the moscow church has already demonstrated this same arrogance when it blessed the invasion of Ukraine with weapons, and now it is entering Africa in the same spirit, only this time using rubles instead of weapons.

The Bishop also spoke about the financial aspect of this expansion. According to him, russian-speaking clergy are handing out rubles, bribing local priests, and attempting to seize churches, property, and congregations. He called the money moscow is investing in African Orthodoxy fraudulent and stated that no amount of money will allow it to take root where faith belongs to the people, not to those who pay.

The Patriarchate of Alexandria is the oldest Orthodox Church on the African continent and historically encompasses all of its countries. The situation escalated in 2021 when the russian orthodox church announced the creation of its own patriarchal exarchate in Africa, effectively challenging a jurisdiction that had existed for centuries. This decision was a continuation of a conflict that has been ongoing since 2019, when the Church of Alexandria recognized the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.