“Its easy to tell someone else to go die in a country they have no ties to.”
It is?
I don’t think it is at all. I don’t think the Patriarch would bother doing this unless he thought it was absolutely necessary.
Have these priests forgotten what the English Jesuits did? They obediently went to England (from safety in France) knowing they probably would be martyred. Their last Mass in free France was their funeral Mass - even though they were not yet dead.
I understand these men are afraid, but a crown awaits them if they are martyred. What do they really have to fear if they walk with Christ?