Moscow patriarchate sets familiar conditions for Pope-Patriarch summit meeting
December 07, 2009
The Patriarchate of Moscow is prepared to arrange a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and Patriarch Kirill—if the Vatican agrees to meet familiar conditions set by the Russian Orthodox Church. In a December 6 television interview, Archbishop Hilarion, the chief ecumenical-affairs spokesman for the Moscow patriarchate, said that the Russian Orthodox Church expects the Vatican to take “concrete steps to show that there is a desire to be cooperative.”
"Our position has remained unchanged for many years,” Archbishop Hilarion said. A summit meeting should take place only after adequate preparation, he said, and that preparation would include assurances that the Vatican has renounced any effort to “proselytize” in Russia and nearby territories. The Vatican has consistently said that proselytism is not acceptable, but Catholics must be free to preach the Gospel to Russians who are not currently affiliated with any church.
Archbishop Hilarion also said that the Vatican should take steps to ease tensons between the Cahtolic and Orthodox communities in Ukraine. He charged that more than 500 Orthodox parishes were “forcibly seized” by Eastern-rite Catholics after the fall of Communism. Catholic and Orthodox Ukrainians have clashed frequently over the control of parish properties that were confiscated from the Ukrainian Catholic Church during years of brutal Soviet persecution. Many Catholic parishes were handed over to nearby Orthodox congregations; when the Communist regime fell, the resurgent Ukrainian Catholic Church demanded return of those properties.
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Posted by: -
Dec. 08, 2009 4:15 PM ET USA
The Russian Orthodox Church is the most hypocritical outfit going.
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Posted by: Gregory108 -
Dec. 08, 2009 2:35 AM ET USA
Same old, same old. Heads I win; tails you lose. The Moscow Patriarchate is not serious about summits, meetings, discussions. All they want is Catholic "surrender." "Just get out of all Russian and previously Soviet territories, give all stolen Ukrainian land and property back to us, tell the Ukrainians they belong to us, because we claim them as our 'Ecclesiatical property' and then we will sit down with you and talk." The Russian Orthodox Church learned summitry well from their Soviet friends!
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Posted by: garedawg -
Dec. 07, 2009 7:31 PM ET USA
Those interested in Catholic-Orthodox relations would do well to read Fr. Christopher Zugger's book "Finding a Hidden Church". Until the Orthodox own up to their complicity with the Communists in persecuting the Catholics in Transcarpathia, not much progress will be made.
