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(Reuters) - A senior leader of the Russian Orthodox Church on Monday called on the Vatican to do more to resolve outstanding disputes so that a meeting between Pope Benedict and the Russian Patriarch could take place.
In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Russian Orthodox Metropolitan (Archbishop) Hilarion, urged the Vatican to show "some signs" of readiness to resolve a decades-long conflict between Orthodox and Catholics in Ukraine that has been blocking a meeting of the two world religious leaders.
An unprecedented meeting between Benedict and Patriarch Kirill could begin to heal the 1,000-year-old rift between the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity, which split in the Great Schism of 1054.
Since the break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the Russian Orthodox Church has accused Catholics of using their new freedoms to poach souls from the Orthodox, a charge the Vatican denies.
But the biggest bone of contention concerns the fate of many church properties that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered confiscated from Eastern Rite Catholics, who worship in an Orthodox rite but owe their allegiance to Rome.
Stalin gave the property to the Russian Orthodox Church but after the fall of communism, the Eastern Rite Catholics took back more than 500 churches, mostly in Western Ukraine.
"Not very much was done or is being done in order to solve this problem," said Hilarion, who is head of the external relations department of the 165-million-member Russian Orthodox Church and one of the closest aides to Patriarch Kirill.
"As soon as we have this understanding, we will be ready to begin preparations for such a meeting," he said.
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Hilarion said the dispute remained the major problem in Catholic-Orthodox relations and the main obstacle to a meeting.
The late Pope John Paul had a burning desire to meet the previous Russian patriarch, Alexiy, possibly in Russia, to bring forward his dream of advancing the cause of Christian unity. But the Russian Orthodox Church blocked his initiative.
Benedict, who heads a Church of some 1.2 billion members, is seen as much more palatable to the Russians than his Polish predecessor, whose fight against communism in his homeland was seen by some in the Orthodox Church as a crusade against Russia.
Hilarion said Benedict in many ways showed "more sensitivity to the Orthodox tradition than his predecessor.
"This is why we regard positively the development of our relations but still we believe that some further work should be done to improve the situation before the meeting between the pope and patriarch could take place," Hilarion said.
"We believe that such a meeting is quite possible but before we discuss the time, the venue, the protocol we would like to come to agreement on basic issues and we would like to receive some signs of readiness to work for the solutions of the existing problem," he said.
Hilarion practically excluded that the meeting could take place either in Moscow or the Vatican.
"A neutral territory would certainly be easier for the first meeting (but) we are not prepared to discuss either time or venue before we discuss the content. For us the content is what matters. Not the venue or the time," he said.
Geneva or Vienna have been floated for a possible meeting.
There has also been some speculation that Benedict and Patriarch Kirill could meet in Serbia in 2013 as part of the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, which allowed religious toleration in the Roman empire.
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So what exactly is the issue? It says that 500 churches were taken back after the Soviets confiscated them. Does the Russian Orthodox want to take back these 500 after the Ukrainian Catholics received them back from the Soviets?
ReplyDeleteHis Holiness the Pope should let it be known that in the interest of justice for the martyred Greek Catholic Church of the Ukraine, a martyrdom perpetrated by the Russian Orthodox church in collusion with the Soviet Communists, that all stolen property should be returned, an indemnity paid to the Greek Catholic Church for the stolen property and persecution and a public apology be made by all the Russian hierarchs.
ReplyDeleteThe Russians should also stop encroaching into Catholic canonical territory in the Western hemisphere, especially Central and Southern America (except perhaps Alaska) where the Russians have some claim of being there first.
That's a start.
The Russians are like Muhammad's camel. Appeasing them is like trying to appease the Communists, and as Cardinals Beran, Mindszenty and Slipyj can attest to, is not only an exercise in futility with an ever hungry and encroaching enemy, but is also an act of injustice perpetrated against the Greek Catholic Church which has been ever faithful to the Roman See.
Met. Hilarion is pretty clear on his opinion of what the GCs should do in Ukraine - it is not very positive. I think if you search for "Greek Catholic" and "Hilarion" you can draw a pretty clear conclusion that he thinks they are THE impediment to further discussion.
ReplyDeleteDear Josephus, when you say Met. Hilarion is "pretty clear" do you mean that he thinks all 500 properties should be returned to the UOC-MP? Since 1991, the local people had decided to which church they want to go and votes have been taken in villages. You cannot force people to go to a specific church. As for ownership it was decied by vote. The churches in Galicia were orginally Orthodox and the last monastery Orthodox church was closed by the Austrians in 1785 with the help of their troops. The monks fled to Bukovyna. The UOC-MP in galcia just does not have the support of the local people & that is a fact.
ReplyDeleteSteve: His opinion is they were in Western Ukraine before oppression and so there is an historical hold on that area. He does not accept any movement to the East and sees it as an incursion on the Orthodox Church's canonical territory.
ReplyDeleteThis tendentious farrago of nonsense is reliably repeated every few months by various spokesmen of the Russian Church. No serious historian believes a word of it, and many fellow Orthodox are also embarrassed by it. Inter alia, Met. Kallistos Ware, in his famous introductory text *The Orthodox Church* has recognized Russian Orthodox collusion in the suppression of Greco-Catholics in Ukraine. More recently, the Russian Orthodox theologian Antoine Arjakovsky has written at length and in very moving terms about the necessity of repentance on the part of the Russians before there can be Russian-Ukrainian and Orthodox-Catholic reconciliation. See his book *En Attendant le Concile de l'Eglise Orthodoxe.* And for perhaps the most damning historical details yet, see the article published in LOGOS: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies in 2000-2002 by the eminent historian Robert Taft documenting, based on Soviet archival sources, the collusion of the Moscow patriarchate. It is sad and embarrassing to see Met. Hilarion, otherwise an excellent theologian, continue to repeat this rubbish with a straight face. As Taft said in June at Orientale Lumen, claims like these of Met. Hilarion are from those who do not study history but instead make it up. As he want on to say, the Orthodox white-washing of history via systematic use of the double-standard, and the "my hands are always cleaner than yours," has to be denounced as regularly as these claims are put forth.
ReplyDeleteJoseph, this canonical territory talk by the Russians is jabberwocky. The Russians are the most aggressively expansionist of the local Orthodox Churches, and financed by Moscow, they are planting parishes and missions everywhere in traditional Catholic canonical territory. Like Dr. Adam says, it's about time someone calls them out on it and calls a spade a spade and recognize bullshit for what it is.
ReplyDeleteI met an Orthodox Puerto Rican priest who used to be Catholic. I think he would say the expansion of the Russian Orthodox Church (into which he converted), is a positive development.
ReplyDeleteThat may jolly well be so, and many Greek Catholics may also feel likewise, but according to the Russians, it's all about canonical territory, so what's good enough for the goose should also be good enough for the gander.
ReplyDeleteThis Russian double-speak rubbish should be identified and called what is it.
Just to set the facts straight, Antoine Arjakovsky is not a "Russian Orthodox theologian". he is employed at the Ukrainian Catholic University of Lviv but his degree is in sociology I believe. he does not have the educational background to be a real theologian and is not held in esteem by the orthodox world. On the other hand Fr. Robert taft is not an historian but a real theologian whose specialty is liturgics. Back to Metr. Hilarion's comments please see this rebutal here:
ReplyDelete"Very different reasons stand behind ROC's accusations against the Greek Catholics"
http://risu.org.ua/en/index/expert_thought/open_theme/44340/
“But in this whole controversy the Moscow Patriarchate stubbornly does not want to notice one very important detail. Speaking of “the defeat of three Orthodox dioceses” conceals the true statistics of Orthodoxy in Galicia. And they are really impressive. Here is the number of Orthodox parishes: in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast there are about 462 parishes (34 UOC-MP, 279 UOC-KP, 149 UAOC), in Lviv Oblast, respectively, 912 (69 UOC-MP, 460 UOC-KP, 383 UAOC) in Ternopil Oblast 663 parishes (125 UOC-MP, 227 UOC-KP, 261 UAOC). For comparison, take the Donetsk Oblast (one of the largest in Ukraine), which has 757 Orthodox communities, or Zhytomyr with 848 parishes and finally Odessa with 684 Orthodox parishes. With so many parishes can there be talk about the defeat of Orthodoxy in Galicia? Statistics show that such centers of “canonical Orthodoxy” as Donetsk or Odesa do not exceed the number of communities “defeated” in the Lviv Oblast, where there are 912 communities.”
I think we must be careful when speaking about history, and the judgments that human beings make based upon it, because "doing" history - like every other human endeavor - is a matter of subjective interpretation of events.
ReplyDeleteApotheoun
This was just posted today. I don't know anything else about the commission from 2004.
ReplyDelete"30 January 2012, 13:27
Patriarch Kirill says his meeting with Pope is not possible yet
Moscow, January 30, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia again said there are no preconditions for his meeting with the Pope.
"I still believe conflicts need to be resolved more energetically, if not fully, in order for this meeting to be successful," the Patriarch said in an interview with the Serb newspaper Vecherniye Novosti (a translation of that interview has been posted on the Moscow Patriarchate website).
Patriarch Kirill said the media reiterated "only the sensational aspect of a possible meeting," saying he "would not like its effect to be reduced to sensation."
"In order for such a meeting to be really useful for further development of relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, we need to work together to radically improve the atmosphere of these relations by resolving the problems that exist between us," the Patriarch said.
Speaking about the seizure of Orthodox churches in Ukraine by Greek Catholics, the Patriarch pointed out that the Russian Church has recently suggested reviving the four-party commission comprising the Vatican, the Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
"However, the Catholic Church was not very enthusiastic about our offer," he said.
The issue of the situation with Orthodox churches in Western Ukraine has been regularly raised during meetings with representatives of the Catholic Church in the Moscow Patriarchate, the Patriarch said.
"The Pope and the heads of the Vatican congregations are expressing an understanding about our concerns, but the problem remains unresolved," Patriarch Kirill said.
At the same time, the Patriarch said the relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church "have improved considerably" over the past 10 years
"The issue of proselytism is no longer as acute as it was in the 1990s, when Catholic missionaries came to Russia to work actively here. The Mixed Group on Issues between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church in Russia, which was created in 2004, played its positive role," he said.
The Patriarch has called for development of cooperation between Orthodox and Catholic Christians, "who keep Christian traditions and have close views on personal and social ethics, technological progress, bioethics, and other issues of our time," including the protection of the rights of Christians.
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=9020