Vatican-Moscow

Orthodox and Catholics growing closer

            On December 4, 2009, Russia and the Vatican raised their diplomatic relationship level to that of full ambassador at the Vatican and nuncio in Moscow. It was the latest sign that the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Patriarch and the Pope is strengthening. The announcement came from Rome where Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had his first meeting with the Holy Father.

            At the same time in Moscow, the Orthodox Church published the book Europe: Spiritual homeland in Russian and Italian, a compilation of texts on Europe by Pope Benedict XVI. It is the concern about Europe’s secularism and increasing hostility towards Christianity that is moving the Orthodox Church closer to Rome in a desire to present a united front to the assault.

            The Vatican has responded by announcing that it will publish a book by Patriarch Kyrill of Moscow in Russian and Italian entitled Liberty and Responsibility in the search for Harmony.

Alexei II

            The change towards closer relations began following the death of Patriarch Alexei II on December 5, 2008. Alexei had been Patriarch for the entire period between 1991 and 2008, from the time the Soviet Union began to disintegrate and the prosperous Russia of today appeared. His first task was to restore the Orthodox Church and the Moscow Patriarchy as the centre of Russia’s spiritual life after the horrors of Soviet atheism, and he had little time for anything else.

Kyrill

            On January 27, 2009, the Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church elected the former head of the Patriarchy’s Department of External Affairs, Metropolitan Kyrill of Smolensk and Kalinigrad, as Patriarch. As External Affairs Chairman, Kyrill, 62, had met with the Pope in Rome three times, first at the enthronement of Benedict in April 2005, and again in 2006.  Most recently he met  Pope Benedict on December 2007 when they discussed important themes such as the promotion of basic values.

            Kyrill is energetic. For years he hosted his own weekly TV program, “Words of a Pastor.” He has travelled around the world and he is open to new ventures such as speaking to youth attending a rock concert in a sports stadium. At 62, he is twenty years younger than Benedict.

Young team

            Kyrill has gathered around him a team of a dozen or more well-trained and capable younger clerics and laymen. His own former Department of External Relations has gone to Bishop, today Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev, who like some of the others is only in his early forties. Hilarion, an accomplished pianist and composer of sacred music, is active in the cultural field His Passion according to St. Matthew was first performed both in Moscow and Rome in 2007 and again in April 2009 in Budapest in St. Stephen’s Basilica, attended by 2000 people including Cardinal Erdo, the Nuncio to Hungary, and other Catholic prelates.

            Meanwhile, great obstacles still remain to achieve closer collaboration between the two Churches, not to mention reunion. Only four days before the December 2007 meeting, now-Patriarch Kyrill had declared that the four Catholic dioceses in Russia would never be accepted and should be downgraded to “administrations.” Despite this, he zealously promoted more frequent contacts.

            Even in doctrinal matters there has been some advancement. Theologians from both Churches including theologians from orthodox Churches other than Russia have begun to meet regularly. In the fall of 2007, after a week of meetings in Ravenna a document was drafted that acknowledges in a certain sense the primacy of the Pope. The 46-paragraph Ravenna document envisages a reunified Church in which the Pope could be the most senior patriarch among the various Orthodox Churches. Orthodox theologians are quite happy that Benedict is Catholicism’s chief theologian as well. Pope Benedict, from his side, has been zealous in receiving, and going to visit, other Patriarchs. In June 2007, for example, Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Cyprus visited the Vatican, offering to be a mediator between the Pope and Patriarch Alexei II. On that occasion the Pope expressed his “firm hope” of the two Churches uniting

            Already well established relations with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, have developed into semi-annual exchanges of delegations, the Orthodox coming to Rome on the feast of Peter and Paul (June 29) and a Catholic delegation going to Constantinople on the feast of St. Andrew (Nov. 30).

            In May 2009 a Russian Orthodox church (Great Martyr Saint Catherine), built in Rome on the hillside above St. Peter’s Basilica, was consecrated. From here on in, delegations from Moscow, or from other Patriarchates, will have a church of their own next to the Vatican. Two months earlier the Catholic Church of St. Nicholas in Bari, Italy, which has historical connections with Orthodoxy, had been given over to the Patriarch of Moscow.

            In short, personal encounters with Orthodox dignitaries have multiplied in recent years. In May 2008, for example Cardinal Walter Kasper visited Moscow on the feast of Saints Cyril and Methodius. When Patriarch Alexei passed away, Cardinal Kasper led the Catholic delegation for the funeral in Moscow. Every noteworthy occasion becomes an opportunity for further encounters.

            Meanwhile before Patriarch Kyrill and Pope Benedict can meet. Patriarch Kyrill must first meet his fellow Patriarchs in the East European countries adjoining Russia. At the same time he has expressed already “the hope that relations between the two churches would further develop in an atmosphere of mutual trust and cooperation primarily defending and asserting the traditional Christian values in Europe and in the world as a whole” (February 4, 2009).

Notes

            The Russian Orthodox Church, according to tradition born in 988 with the conversion of Vladimir the Great, depended initially on the Patriarch of Constantinople, until 1589. It is one of 14 Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, and the most numerous in members, including more than 80 million of the 200 million Orthodox believers in the world.

            The Patriarch of Moscow does not recognize the Patriarch of Constantinople as "primus inter pares" [first among equals], a title traditionally attributed to him by other Orthodox Churches. This has given rise to historical disagreements and misunderstandings.

            The last of these rifts took place in 1996 on the occasion of Estonia's independence. The newly created Church of that now independent country requested to enter the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, abandoning Moscow, and the Moscow Patriarchate refused to recognize this. Moscow has similar problems with now independent Ukraine.

            The Estonian controversy led to the Russian Orthodox Church's withdrawal from the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches, in protest against the participation of the Estonians in the meeting held in Ravenna, Italy, Oct. 8-14, 2007.