Vitaly Vlasenko, director of external
relations for the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians - Baptists, instead blamed controversy and concern surrounding Russian
Orthodoxy, including the patriarch's decision to meet
with Pope Francis.
This does not mean that (for example) the Protestant denials of real presence or transubstantiation are now compatible
with orthodoxy, or that the need to «cite apostolic succession» in
relation to heterodox communities has ceased.