Pope would like to visit eastern Russia, religious leader says
February 22, 2023
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CWN Editor's Note: Leonid Sevastyanov, chairman of the World Union of Old Believers, said that Pope Francis told him he would like to visit the Land of the Leopard National Park in eastern Russia as he returns to Rome from a potential trip to Mongolia.
Sevastyanov added that the Pontiff has named a leopard there after MartÃn Fierro, an Argentine literary character.
The Russian Orthodox Old Believers, at times violently persecuted, refused to accept the liturgical changes made by Patriarch Nikon of Moscow in the 1650s. In 1905, the Russian czar granted religious toleration to the Old Believers, and in 1971, the Russian Orthodox Church rescinded its anathemas.
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