Constantinople Orthodox Church may build presence in Lithuania to rival Moscow church

The leader of the Eastern Orthodox Church said on Tuesday he will work with Lithuania’s government to potentially establish a new branch in the Baltic nation to ensure that believers would no longer be under the sole supervision of Moscow.

“Today a new perspective opens before us along with the possibility to work together for the establishment of (a branch) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (of Constantinople) in Lithuania,” Patriarch Bartholomew told reporters in Vilnius.

Lithuania’s government said some of the country’s Orthodox believers, including Ukrainian refugees, object to the current organization, which is a unit of the Russian Orthodox Church.