Top Russian cleric has meeting with Pope Benedict

The Moscow-based Interfax news agency quoting the Web site of the Moscow Patriarchate said that the Catholics and the Orthodox had underlined the need to engage in dialogue to coordinate their positions.
___________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, December 11, 2007By Luigi Sandri
___________________________________________________________________

A senior leader of the Russian Orthodox Church has met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican, a visit seen adding credence to reports of a thaw in relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Roman Catholic Church. An announcement by the Vatican said that Pope Benedict on 7 December had an audience with Metropolitan Kirill, the head of the external relations department of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The Vatican gave no details of discussions between the two religious leaders. The Moscow-based Interfax news agency quoting the Web site of the Moscow Patriarchate said that the Catholics and the Orthodox had underlined the need to engage in dialogue to coordinate their positions.

"The participants in the conversation approved of the efforts taken by both churches after the previous meeting between Metropolitan Kirill and Benedict XVI held right after the latter's enthronement in April 2005," Interfax reported. "These bilateral efforts were aimed at working out two churches joint position on the most important problems that humanity faces today."

Benedict's Polish-born predecessor, Pope John Paul II, spoke repeatedly about a dream of visiting Russia, but he met resistance from the Moscow Patriarchate, which had accused the Vatican of aggressively seeking converts among Russian Orthodox faithful.

Another controversial issue concerns what the Orthodox call "uniatism", or Catholics who follow the Orthodox Eastern Rite but come under the jurisdiction of Rome.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, in November spoke of a "thaw" in relations between the two churches, and said that, "From our point of view, a meeting between the Pope and Patriarch of Moscow would be useful."

In October, Kirill said that there could be a meeting between Pope Benedict and Patriarch Alexei II, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, "at a place where each of them feels comfortable".

The same month Catholic and Orthodox theologians at a meeting in Ravenna in northern Italy agreed a document dealing with the papacy, one of the issues that led to the split between the Catholic and Orthodox churches in AD 1054. However, the Ravenna meeting was marked by a walkout by representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church in protest at the presence of an Orthodox church from Estonia that the Moscow Patriarchate does not recognise.

Vatican officials expressed regret at the disagreement and underlined the importance of the Russian church participating in the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue.

The Catholic World News service reported on 6 December that the Vatican wanted to invite Patriarch Alexei to attend the next meeting of the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue commission, scheduled for 2009.

SOURCE: