The number of Orthodox clergy in Africa who have transferred to the Moscow Patriarchate’s has increased from 102 (from 8 nations) to 150 (from 12 nations) over the past month, according to Moscow’s Patriarchal Exarch of Africa, Metropolitan Leonid.

Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria, who has led the Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria since 2004, recently issued an encyclical letter comparing the Moscow Patriarchate’s leadership to “savage wolves.” Both patriarchates are among the autocephalous churches that make up Eastern Orthodoxy.