Analysis:Metropolitan Tikhon of the Orthodox Church in America Accompanies Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on Annual Pilgrimage

In a move that must have been painful to the Patriarchate of Moscow,His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon,Archbishop of Washington and Metropolitan of All America and Canada (Orthodox Church in America),accompanied His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople on the Patriarch's annual pilgrimage to Cappadocia,Turkey.The two Orthodox leaders concelebrated the Divine Liturgy of All Saints Day at the ruins of the Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos in Avanos,Cappadocia.
The Patriarchate of Moscow has to be feeling increasingly isolated in its harsh reaction,conditioned by its close alliance with the regime of Vladimir Putin,to the Ecumenical Patriarchate's grant of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine,going so far as to sever communion with its Mother Church in Constantinople,alone among the autocephalous Orthodox Churches to do so.*
Metropolitan Tikhon,leader of the former Russian Metropolia in America,now known as the OCA,has previously visited the Phanar,the headquarters of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul,Turkey,where he was cordially received by Patriarch Bartholomew.Their joint pilgrimage to Cappadocia carries their relationship to a new level of warmth.
At the Divine Liturgy for All Saints Day on 23 June 2019,Patriarch Bartholomew also ordained a deacon.Patriarch Bartholomew and Metropolitan Tikhon had traveled to Cappadocia together on 22 June.