www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Met. Kirill: No future for Russian Cath Ch.

Moscow Patriarchate Lays Down Conditions for Papal Visit

Catholics Must Cease "Proselytizing," Kirill Says

MOSCOW, JAN. 25, 2002 (Zenit.org).- Dialogue with the Vatican and a papal visit are possible if the Catholic clergy ceases to proselytize in Russia, a key member of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow said.

A Russian Catholic Church has "no future," insisted Orthodox Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk, who heads the patriarchate�s Foreign Relations department.

The metropolitan made his statements the day after the meeting of religious leaders in Assisi convoked by John Paul II, at which Patriarch Alexy II was represented by his vicar.

The Russian Orthodox Church resents the rebirth of Catholic communities since the fall of Communism. The Stalin regime forced Eastern-rite Catholics to enter the Orthodox Church. Many bishops, priests and laymen were martyred or imprisoned for opposing this imposition.

"We propose cooperation with the Catholic Church," Metropolitan Kirill said in an interview with Agence France-Presse. "We are convinced that a Russian Catholic Church is something with no future or prospects."

"It is necessary that we pass from proselytism to bilateral and multilateral cooperation," he contended.

At the same time, Metropolitan Kirill suggested that Catholics and Orthodox participate together in the dialogue with European institutions in Brussels.

The metropolitan insisted that the work of Catholic missionaries on Russian soil "is not correct."

"There is no need to profess the Catholic faith here, but to work with the Orthodox Church to reinforce Christian values," he said.

Metropolitan Kirill deplored the fact that John Paul II visited Ukraine last June, despite Alexy II�s opposition. Although the papal visit "was not a catastrophe," Kirill said, it has not "contributed anything to Catholic-Orthodox relations."

The Bishop of Rome should only travel to Russia or meet with Alexy II when pending problems are resolved, the metropolitan continued.

In the past, representatives of the Vatican and of the Catholic Church in Russia have expressed their willingness to resolve these problems. However, they explained that contacts and dialogue first must be established, which is precisely what the patriarchate refuses to undertake.

Dave: Good for you for sharing this enlightening news. We should all have the conviction to protest the absurdity that has become Moscow's whining voice over the threat they perceive from a Catholic presence.

I too was dismayed to see the above Zenit article, but hardly surprised. I am happy for the opportunity to respond. It just seems to be a very lost cause, to try to get Moscow to open up to the world and realize that they are not "the only ones" that are called by God to minister. It is really sickening to see the same old excuses repeated over and over again, especially when they are gravely wrong. Really, the Pope should just go to Russian anyway, because Alexy's "conditions" could never be met.

Obviously, to any person that has even a minimal grasp on reality, Alexy II and the rest of the MP are living in a world that no longer exists. Gone are the days of imperial Russia and the favored position enjoyed by the Russian Orthodox Church within it. Gone too, are the horrendous Soviet decades, when the Russian Church also enjoyed favoritism from the government, in exchange for information and the sacrifice of innocent lives. Gone is the concept of Moscow as the "Third Rome" either in actuality or potentially. Any serious Christian with a grip on reality, can only thank the good Lord that these times have changed.

But, and here is where the present attitude comes from: What is left for the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate? It would seem that every safe haven, each familiar refuge that formally protected them and gave them a status above the rest of society and other religions has long passed away. Now, the ROC-MP must try to make it on their own, as a real church, ministering to the needs of real people and proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. Maybe most of the former RO aristocracy, including Alexy II and Kyril of Smolensk just don't know how to be real priests, much less bishops, dealing with issues that you and I encounter every day. I know it can't be easy for them and surely some Russian Orthodox must be trying to do their best, but I don't think it penetrates the walls of the patriarchal palace in Moscow or the paradigms of most Russian clergy.

Some Russian monastics, priests and laity, as we have seen already, rather than deal with reality, prefer to live with an ever-looming apocalyptic cloud over them, threatening the faithful and pretending that the current state of affairs can only be pointing them in the direction of the end-times. Well, I don't think it is the end, but it may be the end for the MP, at least of the world as the knew it.

The only thing that is still left for the MP to fall back on is their attempt to monopolize Christianity and really, all faiths within what is left of so-called "Great Russia." So far, they can still try to enjoy some type of favored status in the eyes of the government, but this can only be limited, since Russia claims to be now a democratic society. Even their attempts in this area have more or less failed, since Putin and other officials have made it known that they would welcome a visit by John Paul II, making their own invitations, obviously an attitude that goes against the position of the ROC. So, where will they turn next?

They can still badger Catholics and other "sects" whom they feel are infringing on their territory. This is what is happening presently. But, what credibility can they have if they continue to act this way? Freed from absolute monarchy, communism, totalitarianism, etc, Russia must now live up to its ideals of being a free society, and this means the existence of denominations and faiths other than the "holy" Russian Orthodox Church.

The Roman Catholic Church has just as much a right to exist in Russia as does the Orthodox and any other safe and legitimate religious bodies. The Greek Catholic Church too, has every reason to minister to the faithful that belong to it or who decide to join. Orthodoxy has for too long been a religion of fear - fear of outsiders, fear of losing ground, fear of change and most importantly, fear of the truth. I love the Orthodox Church as much as anyone here but really, for a church that so often claims to be the "true and only" authentic version of Christianity, many of its leaders are deathly afraid of truth.

How can a church be true, if it is unwilling to face up to truth when asked to? Everyone knows that the ROC cooperated with the Soviets, at the expense of probably millions of lives. Everyone knows too, that property was forcibly taken from the Greek Catholics and given over outright to the Moscow Patriarchate upon the forced liquidation of our church in Ukraine and the other Soviet block nations. Everyone knows that the "unia" was not really something forced upon our ancestors by RC governments but that the people sincerely benefited in many ways from their communion with the Holy See and certainly after the first 100 years, acknowledged their Greek Catholic faith with great enthusiasm. Everyone knows that in the mid 1940s, the people in Galicia and Transcarpathia did not thankfully and of free will, return to the "church of their forbears" as the Moscow Patriarchate claimed and still claims, but that the resurgence of the Russian Church in our ancestral homelands was a completely convoluted maneuver. In fact, the majority of the people and clergy never accepted the ROC and did not consider themselves Russian Orthodox. Plain and simple - the union was liquidated on paper and in real estate only.

Now, history has gone against the MP, because by virtue of democracy and a fair estimation of the situation, much of the property has been rightfully returned to the Greek Catholics.

I could go on with more examples, but the message seems clear enough to me. We must also remember that the horrendous things happened to Catholics under both the Tsars and the Soviets also happened to the self-governing Ukrainian Orthodox Church, again at the instigation and with the willing help of the Moscow Patriarchate. What about the historic persecution of the Jews in Russia? Have other faiths fared better? The track record is just not good.

The bottom line is that everything the Russian Church complains about and sites as reasons for the chilling of relations with the Romans and as precluding a visit of the Pope to Russia are simply untrue and at best, arguments that would only hold weight with Josef Stalin and other departed head-communists.

"We are convinced that a Russian Catholic Church is something with no future or prospects." So says Kyril of Smolensk. The truth is that the only ones convinced of this statement are Alexy II, Kyril and anyone else dense enough to close their minds in like manner. Obviously, the Catholic Church does have a future in Russia, in both ritual traditions (Latin & Byzantine). If it did not, then I hardly think that the MP's honchos would be wasting their time worrying about it.

The reality of the matter actually must be, as has been alluded to on this forum before, that the Catholics do have something very valuable to offer Russians today and that people are noticing it. They are coming to Catholic churches because they feel they can grow spiritually there, having needs met that the ROC must be failing to do. Maybe it's because they can understand the liturgy better or that its flavor is more appealing. Maybe it's because there are youth ministries to attract and keep the young people in church. Maybe it's because there are social programs in place to help those truly in need. Maybe it's because the Catholics have been a better voice lately, in promoting issues of justice and freedom. Maybe it's because people realize that the Catholic Church is not living in the dark ages - is open to change where it is necessary and just - can continually renew itself from within, to speak afresh the Gospel message so that people can relate and understand. Or, maybe it's just because people perceive one set of values when they think of the Moscow Patriarchate of the ROC and a different one when they consider the Catholic Church.

Don't get me wrong. No church is perfect and the Catholic one surely has had it's faults over the centuries. It can even be accused of some of the same things that the MP is guilty of. The world and the church have come a long way even though there is still far to go. The Pope has gone out of his way (too much, some say) to apologize for past wrongs. I have never heard even a minute mention or hint that any Orthodox bishop or group has officially admitted that there have been sinful events in Orthodox history that need to be repented of. Sure, there is a lot of talk of "I am a sinner" or "Orthodox people believe in repentance and spiritual struggles with their 'passions'" or perhaps the best yet, "the church cries 'cosmic tears' for the errors of humanity and the effects of individuals' sins on our universe" but what does any of this mean without concrete examples, played out among those they have truly and most sinfully hurt?

It is far past the time that Alexy II should get out his box of "I'm Sorry" cards and apologize for the many wrongs the Russian Orthodox Church - MP committed throughout its past, and especially to Catholics, for the heinous acts of violence and holocaust hurled at the Greek Catholic Church (and Roman too) during the last century. A public admittance of wrong is long, long overdue on the part of the Moscow Patriarchate. But, I suppose that one must first admit to themselves that these things happened in order to apologize to those they have wronged and to the world at large. Alexy - it's time to wake up - the dream is over. If the MP expects to have any ounce of credibility now or in the future, a healthy reality check is not only necessary but crucial. Maybe then the ROC - MP could be a church with an pastoral vocation that could minister effectively to the Russian people today. Will they do it? That's a rhetorical question, but one which, if left unanswered will make all the difference in the world.

God bless the people in Russia and may whatever church that is true to its calling from our Lord in the Gospels, serve the most faithful. Joe

I was initially dismayed when I first read the article.

Since then, however, I have given it some thought. His Eminence, Met. Kirill, is not entirely wrong. One should keep in mind that the Archbishop of Smolensk is one of the few truly eirenical members of the Russian Orthodox heirarchy.

I believe that given a chance, he would re-phrase his statement. The small Russian Catholic Church DOES have a future, ultimately as part of the Russian Orthodox Church. It is not our desire to remain separated from Moscow. Yet, we maintain that communion with the Ancient See of Old Rome is essential. We pray for corporate union...or rather communion. It may seem like a dream today...but miracles of grace do happen.

Dear Friends,

Excellent thoughts and ideas all around!

The problem is that no matter how ecumenical we Eastern CAtholics get, the bottom line is that our communion with Rome is what cuts us off from Orthodoxy, even if we maintain the same spirituality and faith in all other aspects with Orthodoxy.

And the Orthodox don't see why we can't see the problem.

But the Eastern Catholic Church, its very existence I mean, will always be an effront to Orthodoxy, as it suggests that there is something "lacking" in Orthodoxy that communion with Rome "corrects" or "completes."

Until that point is somehow hammered out by both Catholic and Orthodox sides (and it may never be), things will remain as they are.

Alex

I feel that there is a Russian cultural issue really at the root of this. Orthodoxy is to Russia what protestantism is to the US. It shaped their culture and history for so long that it became ingrained. Although I don't agree with Met. Kirill's statements, I understand why he made them. I have doubts that a Latin Rite Catholic Church would be acceptable culturally to the Russian people (please don't take offense). Russian (Byzantine) Rite Catholic Churches would need to be established for a few decades for that to even pass as acceptable in Russia. Please don't misunderstand, I am not defending the MP. I am simply tryng to illustrate that historically we have errored on both sides. Centuries of fighting between the various Slavic peoples (Russians, Poles, etc.) has left deep scars on all sides. Healing should take place first before the wounds are covered enough to embrace.

Dmitri

[ 01-28-2002: Message edited by: Dmitri Rostovski ]

Dear Dmitri,

(I understand you have wonderful weather - how are things shaping up for Mardi Gras? Are things getting wild, you lucky fellow?)

Ahem, back to the issue at hand . . .

An excellent point. For centuries, the term "Orthodox" was what an Eastern Slav replied when asked what his nationality was.

To call oneself "Catholic" meant "Polish."

Since I have both Polish and Ukrainian in my background, I call myself "Orthodox Catholic . . .

This is also why Russian Orthodox who came into communion with Rome prefer either "Orthodox in communion with Rome" or else "Catholic Orthodox."

This is much more a matter of national/religious self-definition.

And your point, Dmitri, provides a further insight into the attitude of the MP toward uniatism.

Russia has a much greater social sense of self-identity and so any such union with other Churches must come from the top i.e. the Patriarch and involve the entire nation of Russia for anything like that to have any validity.

Ukrainians tended to be individualistic and so the Unia divided them, they argued and fought and they are still divided (and they still argue and fight).

This also explains why the Russian Catholic Orthodox are the greatest Byzantine "puritans" of all Eastern Catholics.

When a Pope tried to declare the feast of the Sacred Heart as a general feast for all Catholics, the Russian Catholic Orthodox protested saying it was against their ancient traditions and that they already had a devotion to the "Sweetest Jesus Christ, Lover of Mankind."

Rome examined their case and declared them to be correct. To this day, the Russian Orthodox in Communion with Rome have no such feast, nor any other Latinism that characterize other Eastern Catholic Churches.

Alex

Alex,

The weather is warm and the parades have started. Sunday afternoon was Barkus, a dog parade in the French Quarter. At any rate, although I understand my Ruthenian latinisms, I look to the Russian Catholics as ideals upon which a Unia with the ROC could be accomplished.
It think it is an easier idea for the Russians to accept "Orthodox in union with Rome" then Russian Catholic. I think it carries a different perception with no real difference in belief or loyalty to Rome.

Dmitri

[ 01-28-2002: Message edited by: Dmitri Rostovski ]

Dear Dmitri,

When it comes to an ideal model of church unity, I hear the "Russians are coming, the Russians are coming" too!

Long live Orthodox Rus' (in union with Rome)!

Alex

The best are always the most few, aren't they Alex? ....and they didn't even need a Patriarch to accomplish this. Those Russians are always a godsend, aren't they. Those in communion with Rome are the closest living examples of the kind of Orthodoxy we purists wish to preserve.

Those who aren't in communion were partly responsible through their influence for maintaining the sight of Antiochian clergy sporting the ponytail in proper Orthodox fashion.......

By Jimminy, wonderfully jolly old chaps these Russians. Alex, can one belt out a Heil to the czar and remain a Ukranian in good standing?

In IC XC
Samer

Russia isn't so full of Orthodox Russian Christianity as some of you like to portray here. Russia is racked with serious social ills that makes America, Italy, and both their mobs look like virgins. Orginized Criminal outfits that sell snuff tapes of children being abducted and raped and then murdered - Russian children mind you. Body organs are also sold out of Russia on the black market. Their mafia was putting people out of their homes and into the cold street - even old ladies.

Russia is like Latin America, Orthodoxy is entrenched in the culture, just as Catholicism is entrenched in Latin American culture. And in both places coruption is the rule of law. But just as Protestant missionaries can make head way in Latin America, so can Catholicism make head way in Russia.

I find it interesting that some people on here can find any excuse as to why the Russian Church should act like spoiled brats. H#$$! The secular institutions of America and China can dialoge and try to build bridges to each other. Maybe the Patriarch of Moscow should take some classes in communication from the Americans and Chinese?

Some suggestions for orthodoxy on here. It is good to keep your cultural identity of each of your rites. But at what point do you become anal with it? What is Latinization of any Church anyways, mind you I don't mean the collapse of any Eastern rite, but I mean... is the Latin Mass in Spanish? Chinese? Japanese? Latin? or is it English? Is it the African drumers and dancers? Or is it the Native American dancers in feathers and rattles? Or is it the Mass with the black Gospel style choir - that I rather enjoy as a matter of fact, though I could do without the Amens. So what is Latinization in full effect today? Dare I say out of a number of things an element of *universal*. If maintaining Eastern Orthodox identity means taking things to the level of the Russian Church then I might have to begin shunning the Eastern Churches - the Catholic rites too if they will be supporting such anal conduct.

I don't like all things done in the Mass today after Vatican II, like the extra long hand shakes that seem to take an hour, or the holding of hands during the Our Father. But I bend... this is what it means to be catholic... one must at times be humble and bend instead of be rigid.

I did not mean to imply that Russians themselves are any less sinfull than anybody else. I simply admire their tenacity.

Dmitri

Dear Samer,

Well, this Ukrainian loves the Holy Royal Martyrs of Russia, St Nicholas, St Alexandra and all the Czardines!

In actual fact, Tsar St Nicholas was a friend to the Ukrainian people and others, something that Marxist and Soviet propaganda has obscured.

British reporters in his day interviewed him and he told them that the Russian empire is moving to a decentralized model and he foresaw the achievement of freedom by the colonial nations as a matter of course.

He ordered a halt to the Russification of Ukrainian and other culture and language. In 1905, the Moscow Academy of Sciences declared that the Ukrainian language was a separate linguistic entity from the Russian (something they previously denied in good colonial fashion).

Tsar St Nicholas also did things like help build the Kozak Graves Church of St George at Pochayiv Monastery to enshrine the memory of 30,000 Orthodox Kozaks who died there under Hetman Bohdan Khmelnitsky.

He was the gentlest of Tsars, although a complete administrative failure.

Happily, sanctity is based on personal holiness etc. and not on one's managerial skills!

Holy Royal Martyrs of Russia, pray unto God for us!

Alex

Dear Maximus,

Your reference to "anal" in connection to the Eastern Church is both offensive and disgusting.

There is a saying among Ukrainians, "Don't whistle in Church." You are whistling in Church, so please stop it.

As for Russia, yes they have a lot of problems. I think it has something to do with that little issue of atheistic soviet communist domination for almost seventy years . . .

But people are slowly returning to the Church which is a vibrant institution. Don't take my word for it. Go and see for yourself.

It is good to see beyond the familiar western cliches about Orthodoxy.

If the West, together with your Latin Church, were under the conditions under which the Russian Church persevered for so many years and with so many holy martyrs for the faith, do you honestly think there would be anything left of the Church in the West?

Western Christianity is becoming secularized at an alarming rate without persecution (of course, there is the argument that persecution breeds better Christians).

Latinization has much, much more to do with spirituality than whether or not Latin is used etc.

It is a perspective that is so totally foreign to the East and its Patristic theological viewpoint.

It is grist for another thread-mill, but Latinization is definitely not a "universal" value.

It is a universal imposition of the viewpoint of just one Particular Church's Rite and spirituality.

That China is today communist and not Christian, is, as many historians say, the result of the Latin Church's inability to look beyond its own narrow, western European cultural confines.

So much for universality.

But I'm too upset by your comments to write anymore.

Alex

"But just as Protestant missionaries can make head way in Latin America, so can Catholicism make head way in Russia."

????

Is that the idea, then? Send in the Catholic missionaries to proselytize the Russians, following the example of what the Protestant missionaries are doing to the RCC in South America? If that's true, then it seems to me that the MP is not as off target as some of the chronic ROC-bashers would like to intimate. However, ISTM that this is *not* ths Vatican policy at all -- or is it? Based on what you have written, it's hard to tell.

"Dare I say out of a number of things an element of *universal*."

As there is equally an element of "universal" in Byzantine spirituality -- just ask the Byzantine Catholics here. The key problem, ISTM, is when one makes statements like "Latin = Universal" --- that represents a problematic view to *all* non-Latin Christians -- Byzantines, Pre-Chalcedonians, etc.

Brendan

Dear Brendan,

You rock, man, you really rock!!

(Do you see how contemporary I am trying to be to get you to return?)

It's really killing me, but, if it brings you back, the sacrifice will be worth it.

Alex