The refutation of Protestantism by both the Catholic Church and the Ecumenical Patriarch was on theological grounds. If. Politics were involved then it would have been to the Patriarch"s advantage to court the Protestants as allies against the Roman Church. There was no love lost between Rome and Constantinople at that time.
Jeremias II conducted the first theological exchanges between Orthodoxy and Protestants. Lutherans Jakob Andreae and Martin Crusius from Tübingen presented the Patriarch with a translation of the Augsburg Confession. Jeremias II wrote three rebuttals which established that the Orthodox Church had no desire for alliance with the reformation. It also set out clearly the theological differences between the Orthodox and Protestantism.