New hints of movement
toward Vatican-Moscow 'summit'?
December 02, 2009
On the eve of a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and Russia’s President Dmitri Medvedev, there are new signs of substantial progress in relations between the Holy See and the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, and hint that a “summit” meeting between the Pope and Russian Patriarch Kirill might be under discussion.
The Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow has published a collection of speeches by Pope Benedict XVI, and a government official in Belarus has suggested that his country might be an appropriate place for the much-anticipated ecumenical summit.
The new book produced by the Moscow patriarchate,
Europe Spiritual Homeland, is a collection of talks by Pope Benedict over the past decade — both before and after his election as Roman Pontiff—addressing the spiritual crisis in Europe.
The book, published in Italian and Russian, carries an introduction by Archbishop Hilarion, the chief ecumenical officer of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Since the January election of Kirill to succeed Alexei II as Patriarch of Moscow, ecumenical contacts with the Vatican have increased dramatically.
The new Russian Patriarch has strong personal ties with Pope Benedict; he met with the Pontiff on three different occasions while serving as the chief ecumenical official for the Moscow patriarchate.
Patriarch Kirill has expressed a keen interest in cooperating with the Catholic Church, especially in the struggle against secularism in Europe: the topic of the new collection of papal speeches.
On the same day’s a the book’s introduction, the director of religious affairs for the government of Belarus told reporters that his country might be an ideal location for a meeting between Pope Benedict and Patriarch Kirill.
At a press conference in Minsk, Leonid Gulyako said that relations between the Orthodox and Catholic churches have always been warm in Belarus. The country’s President Alexander Lukashenko had issued an invitation for Pope Benedict to visit Belarus during an April meeting at the Vatican.
Although there has been no public discussion of any plan for a meeting between the Pope and the Russian Patriarch, officials of both the Vatican and the Moscow patriarchate have suggested in the past that such a meeting would probably take place neither in Rome nor in Moscow but at some “neutral” location.
The visit to Rome by President Medvedev is significant in itself, since the Russian leader has advanced the possibility that Russia might open a full embassy to the Holy See. (The Russian Federation currently has a special diplomatic representative at the Vatican.)
Medvedev — who was baptized into the Orthodox Church as an adult, and whose wife Svetlana Medvedev is a known for her devotion to the Orthodox Church — could also serve as an intermediary in furthering talks between the Holy See and the Moscow patriarchate.
Book diplomacy between
Pope and Patriarch
Rome, Dec. 3 (Translated from ASCA) - Pope Benedict XVI has thanked the Patriarchate of Moscow for its decision to publish his discourses on Europe, even as the Vatican announced that Rome will soon return the favor, by publishing a book by Patriarch Kirill entitled
Freedom and responsibility: In search of harmony.
In April, Archbishop Hilarion, president of the patriarchate's Department of External Relations, will come to Rome for the presentation of the book at the Catholic University of Milan. Hilarion wrote the Introduction to the Russian-Italian book
Europa patria spirituale by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. The Introduction was published in
L'Osservatore Romano on Wednesday.
[I finally finished the translation - it's 17 pages long as a WORD document, and I will post it in the ISSUES thread, possibly in two boxes. Even if it does not say a word about Benedict XVI or the book itself, it is very informative on the positions held by the Russian Orthodox Church about the European Union it wants and on specific social issues.]
In a message conveyed through the Secretariat of State, the Holy Father expressed his thanks "for the dedicated and significant gesture of all those who contributed (to the project) and for the sentiments that prompted it".
This 'book diplomacy' is yet another in a series of small 'signals' that with patriarch Kirill's assumption of the Russian Orthodox leadership, Rome and Moscow are growing closer slowly but constantly.
It is obviously too early to speculate on a possible date for a meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch but the possibility that this could take place sooner rather than later appears to be growing.
There are many points of convergence between the two Churches, starting with Europe. In the face of a continent now dominated by a 'militant secularism' that is just as dangerous as the 'militant atheism' of the Soviet regime - as Hilarion writes in his Introduction - Rome and Moscow are in total accord.
In the past few days, with the Treaty of Lisbon entering into effect (enforcing a European Constitution), Catholics and Orthodox have made known that they will present a 'common front' in the dialog with the institutions of teh European Union in Brussels and Strasbourg.
Article 17 of the constitution calls for 'open, transparent and regular dialog' between the EU and the Churches of Europe.
The representative of the Russian Orthodox Church to the EU, Archpriest Antony Ilyin, has met with Fr. Piotr Mazurkiewicz, secretary general of the Conference of Catholic European Bishops, have met to lay down the bases for this collaboration.
Ilyin said: "Both sides understand the importance of the fact that teh Treaty of Lisbon is now in effect... and have therefore decided to start preparing a common position for our relationship with EU institutions and officials".
He said this task is made easier because Catholics and Orthodox "already have similar positions on most of the urgent issues".
At the presentation of the Pope's book yesterday in Rome, Fr. Milan Zust, S.J., who is the official at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity specifically responsible for relations with Moscow, said the publication of the book was "a most important step in building that reciprocal trust and esteem which makes our common witness in Europe so clear".
Sergej Svonarev, Archbishop Hilarion's vicar, said: "Let us stabilize our dialog on these issues and institute regular meetings that will focus on the theme 'Religious values, European values'."
Recently, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant leaders in the United States launched the Manhattan Declaration in defense of life and other non-negotiable Christian values.
The next step in the Rome-Moscow rapprochement may well be a similar declaration for Europe.
And from an unexpected source - the usually anti-Pope, anti-Church The Guardian - one of the items I didn't get to see yesterday after my modem failed. Its overview casts an even wider net for the prospects of Christian reunification, It is featured in the newspaper's History section:
Moving towards a united Christianity
by Adrian Pabst
Wednesday 2 December 2009
In the past two months, relations between the three main Christian churches have moved in more promising directions than perhaps during the past 50 years of uninspiring liberal dialogue.
By opening a new chapter of theological engagement and concrete co-operation with Orthodoxy and Anglicanism, Pope Benedict XVI is changing the terms of debate about church reunification. In time, we might witness the end of the Great Schism between east and west and a union of the main episcopally-based churches.
First there was the Rome visit in September by the Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Moscow's man for ecumenical relations. In high-level meetings, both sides argued that their shared resistance to secularism and moral relativism calls forth a further rapprochement of Orthodoxy and Catholicism.
Declaring that "More than ever, we Christians must stand together", Hilarion insisted that each side can appeal to shared traditions and work towards greater closeness in a spirit of "mutual respect and love".
That this was more than diplomatic protocol was confirmed by the Catholic Archbishop of Moscow, Monsignor Paolo Pezzi. In an interview with the Italian newspaper
Corriere della Sera, he said that union between Catholics and Orthodox "is possible, indeed it has never been so close".
The formal end of the Great Schism of 1054, which has divided the two churches for a millennium, and the move towards full spiritual communion "could happen soon".
[These statements are rash and rather unrealistic - even if we just limit it to the prospect of the Catholic and Orthodox churches getting back together. Moscow is at odds with Constantinople whose Ecumenical Patriarchate is primus inter pares in the Orthodox world. And the theologians are just starting to discuss the role of the Pope in a reunified Church - historically, this has been the major stumbling block!]
Even on doctrinal matters, Roman Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy are essentially in agreement. Hilarion acknowledged that the two have different ecclesiological models, with the former favouring a more centralised structure led by the Pontiff while the latter emphasises the autonomy of provinces and local churches.
"There remains the question of papal primacy and this will be a concern at the next meeting of the Catholic-Orthodox commission. But to me, it doesn't seem impossible to reach an agreement", said Pezzi.
[No, it's not impossible, but unless the Holy Spirit breathes adn wills 'Now is the time', who knows how long it will take? But we should all be as optimistic as Mons. Pezzi and pray that this miracle may take place in Benedict XVI's Pontificate!]
Indeed, when Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope in 2005, one of his first acts was to drop the title of Patriarch of the West. Rather than affirming absolutist papal supremacism, Benedict indicated with this act that he seeks to blend the historical primacy of the See of Rome and the Pope's universal jurisdiction with that of local churches in east and west.
The next step for Rome is to incorporate the Orthodox emphasis on conciliarity as a counterweight to papal authority.
Increasingly shrill attacks on Benedict by Catholic dissidents like Hans Küng represent little more than the angry expression of some liberals who are excluding themselves from pan-Christian reunification.
Meanwhile, closer church ties will be greatly helped by concrete co-operation. There's already considerable convergence on social teaching, as evinced by Kirill's preface to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone's book
The Ethics of the Common Good in Catholic Social Doctrine.
Both Catholicism and Orthodoxy argue for a civil market economy embedded in communal relations and serving the public good rather than exclusively private profit, a prominent theme in Benedict's recent social encyclical "Caritas in veritate".
Similarly, last week's Rome visit by the Archbishop of Canterbury has advanced Catholic-Anglican relations. Far from humiliating the Primate of the Anglican Communion by parking papal tanks on the lawn at Lambeth
[which is unthinkable for someone like Benedict, to begin with, however colorful Ruth Gledhill's military metaphor may be], Benedict emphasised the importance of Anglicanism in promoting the unity of all episcopally-based Christian churches.
The presence of Anglicans within Catholicism might lead to a better appreciation of Anglicanism's unique contribution to Christianity. It could also help Anglicans define an episcopal identity beyond the divide between liberals and evangelicals.
No less significant was the fact both the Pope and the archbishop spoke in favour of a different model of socio-economic development that does not rely exclusively on the state or the market.
Rather, it accentuates mutualist principles of reciprocity and gift-exchange and the absolute sanctity of human and natural life which is relational, not individualist or collectivist.
[All straight out of Caritas in veritate!]
This shared social teaching is key in further developing concrete links and bonds of trust among Christians of different traditions.
Moves towards church reunification are signs of a revivified Christian Europe, one which can use its shared faith to transform the continent and the whole world.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 03/12/2009 17:29]