Jesuits give books to Church of Russia

BARCELONA, Spain, FEB. 13, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A donation from Spanish religious congregations of more than 5,000 books to the Orthodox Academy of Moscow has been received as "another sign of the good relations" between the two Churches.

That is how Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, the president of the Department of External Affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, described the donation.

Jesuit Father Emilio Benedetti told ZENIT how the donation came about: "During the entire month of October 2007, I had the satisfaction of helping Father Dionisyos Shlenov, professor of the Orthodox Theological Academy of Moscow, and Father Valeri, archivist of the Patriarchate of Moscow, to select the books."

The volumes are duplicates donated by Jesuit theology faculties from universities in Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao and Granada. Benedictines from Montserrat and Claretian fathers from Barcelona "also donated a series of excellent works," Father Benedetti said.

“We gathered more than 5,000 volumes published by good and well known authors in philosophy, history, theology, fathers of the Church and of biblical exegesis,” he added.

Metropolitan Kirill sent Father Benedetti a letter thanking him for his work. He wrote, "As a member of the Society of Jesus, your help is one more sign of the current good relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.”