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Deep
Freeze in Moscow
The creation of permanent
Catholic dioceses in Russia draws a harsh reaction from
Orthodox officials, and ecumenical progress comes to an abrupt halt.
By CWR Staff
Anywhere else in the world, the establishment of a Catholic diocese—to supersede an “apostolic administration” —might be seen as an administrative technicality, of interest only to canon lawyers. But in Russia, the February announcement that the Holy See was creating four new dioceses, to replace the apostolic administrations already in place there, created a furious reaction from the Russian Orthodox Church. The Vatican move, and the angry reaction from the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, quickly chilled ecumenical relations between the world’s two largest Christian bodies. And the odds that Pope John Paul II would realize his cherished hope of visiting Moscow now seem vanishingly small.
The Vatican’s announcement of the new diocesan structure came at a curious time. Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, was scheduled to visit Moscow February 21-22, to continue a regular series of exchanges between Catholic and Orthodox officials. Clerics of both churches were looking forward to the visit, confident that the talks would produce stronger ecumenical relations, and perhaps even pave the way for a papal visit to Russia. Then on February 11, the Vatican announced the establishment of the new dioceses, and the ecumenical landscape was dramatically altered.
For years the relationship between Rome and Moscow has been a difficult one. Russian Orthodox leaders have complained incessantly about Catholic “proselytizing” in a land that they consider their own “canonical territory.” Catholics reply that their goal in Russia is not to steal sheep from the Orthodox flock, but to serve the pastoral needs of Catholics already living there, and to reach out to the huge majority of Russians who are not affiliated with any church. (Although in theory two-thirds of the Russian people are classified as members of the Russian Orthodox Church, in practice only about two to three percent are active members of any parish.) The Vatican has politely but firmly insisted that the term “canonical territory” is a meaningless one—that every faith has the right to serve the needs of its followers in any geographical territory.
At least twice in the past decade, ecumenical talks have progressed far enough to yield hopes of a “summit meeting” between Pope John Paul and the Patriarch Aleksei II of Moscow. Each time, Aleksei has pulled back from the preparatory talks, and repeated the familiar complaints about Catholic activism. The Orthodox Patriarch has frequently told the media that he would welcome the Pontiff to Moscow—but only after receiving assurances that the Catholic Church would cease “proselytism” in Russia.
Earlier this year, however, the prospects for ecumenical progress seemed to be improving. Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a public statement indicating that he hoped the Pope would visit Rome soon, and urging the Russian Orthodox leadership to join him in an invitation. Orthodox officials traveled to Assisi to join in the inter-faith day of prayer for peace convened by the Pope on January 24, and Catholic officials organized a parallel event in Moscow the same day. The time appeared ripe for Cardinal Kasper’s visit.
First impact
Then on February 6, the papal nuncio in Moscow, Archbishop Giorgio Zur, met with
the Orthodox Archbishop Clement, a spokesman on ecumenical affairs for the
Moscow patriarchate. The papal legate formally informed his Orthodox counterpart
about the Vatican plans to create Russian dioceses. Archbishop Clement (the
Russian Orthodox Church reported in an official release) replied that “the
actions planned by the Vatican represented violations of the canonical
principles and norms of inter-church relations.” The Orthodox prelate said that
the Vatican move would create “serious obstacles” to further ecumenical
dialogue.
In Rome, some Vatican diplomats told reporters that they were “extremely disappointed” by the decision to create dioceses—especially since it came just before Cardinal Kasper’s visit. Others, taking the opposite position, remarked that the visit by the Vatican’s top ecumenical official would provide an ideal opportunity for discussion of the new canonical situation.
The Catholic Church in Russia, emerging after decades of Communist suppression, had worked steadily to establish a clear administrative structure. In April 1991, two apostolic administrations were created to serve the local Catholic populace. In 1999 these two jurisdictions were divided, and two new apostolic administrations created. The four administrations were for Moscow and Saratov in European Russia, and for western (Novosibirsk) and eastern (Irkutsk) Siberia. The bishops heading the four Russian apostolic administrations had been working quietly with the Congregation for Bishops and the Secretariat of State to establish full diocesan structures, Vatican sources now revealed.
(An apostolic administration is an administrative region—less fully developed than a diocese—which is set up to serve Catholics in a place where the local situation prevents the establishment of a diocese. Frequently—as in the Russian case—the establishment of a diocese is judged imprudent because of relations with the local government or with other religious groups in the area.)
When the creation of the new dioceses was formally announced, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls made a special point of saying that the move was a “normal administrative act,” which was motivated by “pastoral concerns identical to those that prompt the Russian Orthodox to create dioceses outside their own traditional territory.” The Vatican announcement, however, was not a “normal” one from the perspective of publicity. While the Holy See establishes new dioceses on a regular basis, with little fanfare, this announcement came with a very thorough public explanation. The Vatican press office provided reporters with a profile and history of the Catholic Church in Russia, an answer to Orthodox complaints that Catholics have engaged in “proselytism” there, and an appeal for unity among Christians.
The new hierarchical structure for Russia, the Vatican revealed, would have the archdiocese in Moscow as the metropolitan see, with the three dioceses in Saratov, Novosibirsk, and Irkutsk. The new dioceses would be led by the same prelates who had headed the apostolic administrations: Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz in Moscow, and Bishops Clement Pickel in Saratov, Joseph Werth in Novosibirsk, and Jerzy Mazur in Irkutsk.
One important nuance in the Vatican announcement involved the naming of the new entities. The Moscow see was named not the Archdiocese of Moscow, but the Archdiocese of the Mother of God at Moscow. The other dioceses were similarly named: the Diocese of St. Clement at Saratov, of the Transfiguration at Novosibirsk, and of St. Joseph at Irkutsk. Thus the Vatican avoided a direct conflict with the Russian Orthodox Church regarding who is the “Archbishop of Moscow,” and perhaps lowered one potential obstacle to an eventual reunion of the two ecclesial bodies.
Clearly anticipating a loud negative reaction from the Moscow patriarchate, the Vatican accompanied the announcement with a call for unity among Christians, and a reminder that the Holy See hoped that the new, more permanent structure of the Russian Catholic Church might even help to advance ecumenical dialogue. Navarro-Valls also reminded reporters that in the past decade Catholic groups such as Aid to the Church in Need have provided more than $17 million in direct aid to the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Vatican pointed out that the Catholic population of Russia grew substantially during the 20th century, in large part because of the mass deportations ordered by the Soviet regime. Also, Catholic priests and laymen have had some success in attracting new believers from among the Russian people who have not been active in any church. Thus the growth of the Catholic Church in Russia has not come at the expense of neighboring Orthodox parishes, the Vatican insists.
In his public announcement, Navarro-Valls said that the political leaders of the Russian Federation “have no problems” with the Vatican’s decision. Pointing out that the Russian Federation should benefit from the presence of a Catholic populace which is “numerically modest but religiously motivated,” the Vatican announcement stressed that the Catholics now living in Russia have “absolutely no intention” of changing the cultural identity of Russia as a traditionally Orthodox nation.
Aftershocks
From the outset, Orthodox reaction to the Vatican announcement was negative.
Igor Vyzhanov, a spokesman for the Moscow patriarchate, told the Russian news
agency Interfax that the Vatican had acted precipitously. “Such issues should be
a topic for discussion between the churches and should not be implemented
unilaterally,” he said. Another Orthodox spokesman, Viktor Malukhin, injected a
more somber note: “The dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the
Roman Catholic Church is facing extremely serious difficulties that are the
Vatican’s fault. The possibility of Pope John Paul II’s trip to Russia has
become even more hypothetical.”
The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church called the announcement of the four dioceses “a challenge to Orthodoxy,” and accused the Vatican of creating “an unprecedented structure, a Russian Catholic Church,” in order to convert Russians from Orthodoxy to Catholicism. “Nothing of this kind has ever happened in Russia’s history,” it said.
Patriarch Aleksei II said that the move was “unfriendly,” and had the effect of “undermining the prospects for better relations between the two churches.” He argued that if the Holy See looks upon the Moscow patriarchate as a rival, “any agreement between us is out of the question.”
The Russian Orthodox leader lamented that the Orthodox Church “has been presented with a fait accompli.” He said that while Catholic priests have traditionally ministered to the Catholic people who come into Russia from other countries, the establishment of a Catholic hierarchy for Russia represents “a challenge to Orthodoxy which has been rooted in the country for centuries.”
Aleksei went on to say that whereas Orthodox dioceses in other lands generally “take care of the Russian-speaking Orthodox diaspora,” the Catholic dioceses of Russia would be designed to advance “missionary work”—presumably meaning the conversion of Orthodox believers. The Vatican’s action, Patriarch Aleksei charged, constitutes “a serious threat” to the “fragile negotiation process” involved in ecumenical relations. He concluded: “The leadership of the Roman Catholic Church is now responsible before God and history for a sharp aggravation of our relations, for the frustration of the hope for their normalization that has just begun to shape.”
Even Russia’s foreign
ministry joined in the criticism, saying that its representatives had warned the
Vatican against the action when notified of the Vatican’s intentions on February
4. The ministry said it had cautioned that creating the dioceses might lead to a
“serious exacerbation” of ecumenical relations and now “regrets that the advice
was not heeded.” (Vatican diplomats offered a very different accounting of the
February 4 meeting, saying that the Russian government had expressed no
misgivings about the move.)
Church-state tensions?
The fact that Russian government officials had sided with the Orthodox hierarchy was particularly significant, because in previous weeks many analysts had detected signs of tensions between the government and the Moscow patriarchate—particularly on the topic of a possible papal visit. While government representatives had been making their warmest overtures yet regarding a papal trip to Russia, representatives of the Moscow patriarchate were raising ever-sterner objections, noted Geraldine Fagan of the Keston News Service.
The Vatican has made it clear that Pope John Paul will visit Russia only with the consent of Patriarch Aleksei. In a January interview with the Polish magazine Gazeta Wyborcza, Russia’s President Putin remarked that he could not control the patriarch’s actions. However, he made it quite clear that he hoped the Russian prelate would give his approval for a papal trip. Since Patriarch Aleksei had repeatedly insisted that the time was not right for such an invitation, the public statement by Putin was generally interpreted as an effort to put pressure on the Moscow patriarchate.
After the publication of Putin’s comments, the statements issued by Russian Orthodox officials regarding a papal visit became even more negative. Metropolitan Hilarion of Kerch said that no such meeting should be contemplated now, because relations between Moscow and the Holy See are “highly unsatisfactory.” Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk—the chief ecumenical spokesman for the Orthodox Church—told Agence France Presse that matters would not improve until the Catholic Church “passes from proselytism to bilateral and multilateral cooperation.” In a still more direct slap at the Catholic Church in Russia, Metropolitan Kirill added: “We are convinced that a Russian Catholic Church is something with no future or prospects. There is no need to profess the Catholic faith here, but to work with the Orthodox Church to reinforce Christian values.”
Some analysts saw the sharply contrasting public statements of government and Orthodox Church representatives as evidence that the Putin administration was working in tandem with the Holy See to put pressure on the Moscow patriarchate. A few Orthodox leaders even began to worry aloud that the Kremlin and the Vatican had joined in a tacit agreement to plan a papal visit, with or without the approval of the patriarchate. Still other Russian observers saw Putin’s stance as a shrewd political move, motivated only by his desire to capitalize on the popularity of John Paul II. In any case, the wide gap between the Orthodox Church and the Russian state soon closed after February 11, and Russia’s leaders—both religious and civil—formed a united front against the Catholic Church.
No change in plans
In answer to the mounting criticism, Catholic officials stressed that the
establishment of the Russian dioceses was an administrative convenience, not a
strategic offensive. Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, the head of the new Moscow
archdiocese, emphasized that the new administrative structure would not alter
the nature of Catholic pastoral activity.
“The four new dioceses do not change things for the Catholic Church in Russia; pastoral activity is already intense and does certainly not depend on the formal structure of our communities,” the archbishop told the Fides news service. The establishment of the Moscow archdiocese, and three other dioceses within its metropolitan province, follows a normal course of development, the archbishop said. “Actually this comes after an unusually long time—11 years after the creation of the apostolic administrations in April 1991,” he noted.
Commenting on the uproar in high Russian Orthodox circles, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz contended that “ordinary people, including many Orthodox Christians, welcomed the decision.” He observed: “If the patriarchate had not reacted in this exaggerated way, the news would not have produced this reaction in Russian society, but perhaps only consensus.”
Cardinal Kasper also took the business-as-usual approach, telling reporters in Rome that he had no intention of postponing his trip to Moscow. And Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican Secretary of State, told the press that he is surprised by the harsh criticism from the Moscow patriarchate. “For a long time, our Orthodox brothers have been aware of our plans for reorganization,” he said.
Cardinal Sodano added that the Orthodox leadership should welcome a measure designed to offer better pastoral care for the Catholics of Russia. He observed that the Catholic Church has welcomed the creation of Orthodox dioceses in many predominantly Catholic lands. And he pointed out that the Holy See has supported the construction of a large Orthodox church in Rome, within sight of the Vatican itself.
Once again, Moscow flatly rejected the Vatican approach. On February 14 the papal nuncio in Russia, Archbishop Zur, confirmed that he had been told the Orthodox hierarchy was no longer willing to receive a visit from Cardinal Kasper.
Metropolitan Kirill said that the cardinal’s visit would be useless, since “we have nothing to say to each other.” Kirill also told Russian reporters that although he has met repeatedly with Pope John Paul II and other Catholic leaders, he had heard “many promises, never kept.”
Cardinal Kasper said that
he was “deeply disappointed” by the cancellation of his meetings. He continued
to argue that the Orthodox reaction was a “disproportionate” reaction to a
simple administrative act. “I don’t really know what to think,” the cardinal
told the press in Rome. “Maybe this is a bad interpretation based on the way the
Russian Orthodox understand the idea of a metropolitan region.”
Patience wearing thin
But while Cardinal Kasper clung to a conciliatory approach, other Catholic leaders began to show their frustration with the Orthodox criticism. In Moscow, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz issued a statement denouncing the Moscow patriarchate for a failure to engage in open dialogue with the Catholic Church. After Orthodox leaders released a new volley of statements criticizing the Vatican’s creation of the new dioceses, the archbishop shot back: “We are perplexed and seriously concerned about the interference in internal affairs of the Catholic Church in Russia.”
Archbishop Kondrusiewicz used simple and distinctly undiplomatic language to respond to the Orthodox charge that the establishment of a metropolitan archdiocese was an unusual move for the Catholic Church. “This affirmation is false,” he said. The archbishop also pointed to the Orthodox dioceses that have been established in predominantly Catholic countries, without objections from Rome.
Finally, the Moscow archbishop traced the history of Catholic activity in Russia, arguing that the Catholic Church has been active in the country for decades. And he once again used extremely blunt language as he rejected—”for the umpteenth time”—the Orthodox complaint that Catholics are engaged in “proselytizing” to steal believers from the Russian Orthodox flock.
In Rome, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls issued a similarly blunt statement. The real issue involved in the dispute, he said, was the legal right of the Catholic Church to establish her own administrative structures within Russia. “Does one wish to accept and safeguard the fundamental rights to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion that lie at the base of all forms of civil and pluralistic coexistence?” he asked.
In a remark that was evidently intended as a criticism of Russian government officials who had joined in the criticism of the Vatican move, Navarro-Valls added that if Russia recognizes the principle of religious liberty, “it follows that each faith be recognized and respected in its individual identity, avoiding discrimination between citizens for religious motives—as, indeed, is guaranteed by the civil code of the Russian Federation.”