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_WORLD WATCH______________________________
______________________RUSSIA____________________
Patriarch sets condition . . .
…for a meeting with Pope John Paul
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Aleksei II has reinforced his stance that he is willing to meet with Pope John Paul II, but only if the Catholic Church accedes to his demands regarding Christians in Ukraine.
The Patriarch made his latest statement late in November, during a meeting with visiting Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, who had suggested such a gathering between the two religious leaders. “We do not rule out such a possibility, but we believe the meeting should be well prepared and the obstacles to it that exist today should be removed,” the Patriarch said. The Pope has long expressed his desire to meet with Aleksei and to visit Moscow.
Cardinal Roger Etchegaray met with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch in Moscow on December 8, and described their talk as “cordial and useful.” The president of the Vatican’s committee orchestrating the Jubilee celebration traveled to Moscow with Bishop Pierre Duprey, the former secretary of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. They had been invited to participate in a symposium on the legacy of Pope John XXIII, co-sponsored by the Moscow Academy of Sciences and the University of Bologna. Cardinal Etchegaray, who was the opening speaker for the conference, also used his trip as an occasion to meet with Patriarch Aleksei.
Although Cardinal Etchegaray declined to provide details about their discussion, it was generally understood that the main topic would have been the Pope’s visit to the Ukraine in June of next year—a visit on which the Moscow Patriarchate had not yet issued any public comment. Informed sources confirmed that the cardinal also had brought up the possibility of a meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch.
A source within the Russian Orthodox Church indicated that the Patriarch had once again expressed his willingness to consider such a meeting. However, he said that the Patriarch stipulated two familiar preconditions. First, the Pope would have to make some “significant gesture” toward the Ukrainian Orthodox, easing their fears about clashes with the Eastern-rite Ukrainian Catholic Church. Second, the Pope should promise that the Catholic Church will not engage in “proselytism” in traditionally Orthodox countries.
During the Moscow conference on December 8, the tensions between the Catholic and Orthodox churches was obvious when the Orthodox theologian Ilarion Alfeyef, who works closely with the Moscow Patriarchate, said the relations between the two religious bodies “have not improved recently.” He blamed the Catholic Church for the failure of an ecumenical assembly held in Baltimore in July, where discussions foundered over disagreements on the status of the Eastern Catholic churches.
Back to Catholic World Report January 2001 Table of Contents