http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=6712

07 December 2009, 11:56

Russian Church wants "concrete steps" from Vatican to make Patriarch-Pope meeting possible

Moscow, December 7, Interfax - The Russian Orthodox Church is not against a meeting between its head, Patriarch Kirill, and Pope Benedict XVI but expects the Vatican to "take "concrete steps to show that there is a desire to be cooperative," the Russian Church's foreign relations chief said in a television program on Saturday.

"Our position has remained unchanged for many years: we have never excluded the possibility of such a meeting. So said the late Patriarch Alexy II and so says the incumbent Patriarch, Kirill," head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk told Rossiya television.

But such a meeting needs good preparation "so that the current tension is eliminated," he said.

"We expect the Vatican, the Roman Catholic Church, to take concrete steps to show that there is a desire to be cooperative and heal all the wounds that were inflicted in the extremely harrowing period of the early 90s," the Archbishop said.

In that period, more than 500 Orthodox churches in Ukraine "were forcibly seized by Greek Catholics and the Orthodox believers were ousted from them".

"We are suggesting concrete solutions to the problems that exist," he said.

Archbishop Hilarion also commented on a recent decision by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to seek diplomatic relations between Russia and the Vatican.

"This move on the part of the Russian state deserves nothing but being hailed," he said.

At the same time, there are problems in relations between the Russian Orthodox and Catholic Churches "that need to be solved in a completely different way and by different means, that cannot be solved merely by establishing diplomatic relations," he said.

"Above all, it is the problems of Western Ukraine, where there remains tension in relations between the Orthodox and Greek Catholics," Archbishop Hilarion said.

Bless Father!
Good news! I pray the Pope and Patriarch can meet in a spirit of brotherly love!

I wonder if the Russian Orthodox Church would also be willing to apologize (if it not has already done so, I am not sure) for the forcing of Greek Catholics out of their Churches and the forced renouncing of the "unia" during the Communist period.

To call for one side to apologize and to elminate tension should also come with a mutual apology for the tragedy that befell Greek Catholics during the Soviet Union. Since most of the Churches in Question were taken from the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine in the first place.

Both sides need to mutally forgive the other, then tensions would get better and the meeting would be a much more fruitful and peaceful meeting of brothers in Christ.

The Russian Orthodox Church should then take concrete steps to show that there is a desire to be cooperative and heal all the wounds that were inflicted in the extremely harrowing period of the late 40s. In that period 2387 Greek Catholic Churches were forcibly seized by Orthodox and the Greek Catholics were ousted from them.

I would just be happy if they would acknowledge the false synods to be what they were, an act of religious repression that, while implemented by the Communist authorities, was abetted, and indeed welcomed, by the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church. An apology would be nice, too--but you know the old motto: "Never explain, never apologize" (Hat tip to Kyr Kallistos for that one).

I would hope that both sides would see how they have contributed to the current estrangement.

In reading the threads here and on other forums, there tends to be a tendency for one group to demand the apology of the other, and yet will explain why their own group's actions were just a response to a political situation or some other external factor.

Both sides need to begin to see with the eyes of the other.
I don't know why that has been so difficult between the East and West.

Danman916 is right on the money.This discussion has certainly provoked strong statements and evoked strong opinions. History placed the Galicians and Carpatho-Rusyns at the fault line of Europe, caught between the shifting geopolitical boundaries and aims of great empires and kingdoms, i.e. the Russian, the Austro-Hungarian and the Polish-Lithuanian. What happened to these peoples, whose deep faith and simple piety was profound, ought to serve as warning to those of you who would put your trust in princes and expect any government to further the aims of the Faith. My family, in both the United States and in Europe, has both clergy and laity who remain Eastern Catholic and members, such as my immediate family, who returned to Orthodoxy. Those of us whose families lived through these struggles have tried to understand the past and move forward into the future. In the United States the Rusyn community was driven asunder in community after community at least twice during the 20th Century as a result of arguments such as Westernization (as perceived by some) or Russification, as perceived by others. Indeed,"Neither to Moscow nor to Rome" became the rallying cry of many as a result. (Many went right out the door to other faiths or no faith at all!) Property rights and congregationalism became foundations of 'faith' to many. My point is simple, seeking apologies and seeking recriminations over the sins committed by some as well as the (perceived)good faith actions of others,is akin to putting spilled milk back into a bottle. The laity and the clergy of both sides need to work together on a community by community basis to resolve these difficult and emotionally tough issues. Proclamations and slogans won't work. The pastoral example set by Metropolitan Nicholas of Amissos and Metropolitan Basil of Pittsburgh is a template for reconciliation. We must respect the faith of each other if we truly believe the unity of the faith which we all petition during the Divine Liturgy is a goal worth striving for. Too much pain and suffering occurred both in Europe and America for anyone to demand apologies.

Danman,

This has always been a problem for our fallen race. When there's a confrontation of any kind, we are quick to point out and maximize the other party's fault in the matter, and just as quick to justify and minimize our own.

Ideally, both sides should come together in a spirit of humility and repentance. However, it will be incumbent on the side that wishes to be the most Christ-like to be ready to do so unilaterally, if necessary.


It's been difficult because somehow we've failed to realize that our lack of unity is a judgment against us. Discord between parties always begins with discord within one or both of the parties involved.

Again and again, in peace, let us pray to the Lord ... for peace throughout the world, for the well-being of God's holy churches and for the unity of all!


Peace,
Deacon Richard

forgive me but what is the point of the Pope meeting with the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow anyway?

If there is no point, why make it so hard for such a meeting?
Even if it is for a cup of tea or for talking about secular business, why make it so hard with a litany of demands?

Well, for starters, if for no other reason, a discussion of how lonely it is at the top. Then, how much do you trust the people around you for telling you the truth? How much do you think is what they think you want to hear? How do you find time to pray when there are so many demands put on you by your office? How do you cope with being in the spotlight all the time?

A bishop once said, "Once they put the mitre on you, you will never eat a bad meal or hear the truth about yourself again".

Gee, I had a priest tell me that a mitre was, "an artificial extension of a natural vacuum"

Stuart and hawk:

May I use your material? Both are priceless. Reminds me of my attorney friend who collected attorney jokes and could go on and on reciting them.

BOB

There's no copyright involved. Have a ball.

http://www.mospat.ru/en/2009/11/12/news8273/

Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk explains problems and prospects of relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church in a talk with foreign journalists

Shouldn't the Catholic Communion want the ROC to apologize for the violent suppression of the Greek Catholic Church by the Soviets and the giving of these Churches to the ROC. I think that the Russian Church is asking the Vatican to do a lot, but if the Vatican or the UGCC Church asked the same of the ROC would they do what they are asking of the Catholics?

The root problem is not the Soviet confiscation of Catholic properties but the tragic events that led to the evil of war and hatred between brothers hundreds of years earlier with the formation of another Church in traditionally Orthodox lands.

There is the problem of the Churches which were forced into "union" under Brest and Uzhhorod.

There is the problem of Austria-Hungary denying the Back to Orthodoxy movement in Sub-carpathia and putting the Orthodox on trial for treason.

There is the problem of the Polish government which invaded and occupied Galicia in the interwar period and seized Orthodox properties as "restitution" for the Russian occupation, and turned them over to the Vatican.

And there is the problem of the churches the Vatican built on demolished Orthodox Churches, e.g. St. George Cathedral in Lviv.

To add to Hieromonk Ambrose's comments, the matter of what the MP (not ROCOR, which was itself persecuted) takes responsibility for is somewhat complicated by its circumstances at the time of some of these events.

It did not neccessarily always have a say in what happened under its auspices in Soviet Times.

On the other hand, the UGCC had full autonomy; it was not under tight reigns or being forced to collaborate with an atheist government.

The Catholic Church was never one to decline to take over churches forced into the Catholic communion in Eastern Europe. The Habsburgs and others did what they wanted and Rome claimed their share of the spoils. All it took was for a bishop to go Catholic and everyone and everything under them was made to go the same way as happened in Lviv when the bishop (I suspect was a sleeper) went over to Rome. The civil authorities enforced the move at parish level. The same occured in Transylvania when all Orthodox were put into the Catholic Church by the Hapsburgs.

I think the Catholics do have to say sorry for what Catholics did and not worry what others did back in other times in similar circumstances. That really is for other parties to nut out for themselves.

Sorry to contradict, but the cases are not parallel. Eastern Orthodoxy continued, in Poland and in Austria-Hungary. Moreover, it was a century before L'viv and Peremyshyl accepted the Union of Brest - doesn't sound like force to me. After the Stauropegion Brotherhood accepted the Union, another Eastern Orthodox parish and church were immediately organized in L'viv, under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Metropolitan of Bukovyna. In Transylvania, once the dust settled, so to speak, the Greek-Catholics were at most about 50%. In the portions of Serbo-Croatia which belonged to Austria-Hungary, not only were the Orthodox not disturbed but the government financed the printing of service-books. And so on.

Such conditions did not apply in the USSR or in Communist Romania.

Fr. Serge

I continually warn Father Ambrose against drinking his own bathwater, by which I mean taking at face value the polemical positions developed over the years and rejecting the facts as brought forth through scholarly research (this is the point at which Father Ambrose will denounce modern scholarship). Nonetheless, force was not involved in either of the two unions mentioned by Father Ambrose--they were, in fact, "bottom-up" instigated within the Orthodox communities of Ukraine and the Carpathians, largely without the knowledge or support of Rome. These are simple, historical facts, well documented, and laid out with admirable clarity in Borys Gudziak's Crisis and Reform: The Kyivan Metropolitanate, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Genesis of the Union of Brest, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA) 2001.

s.

As I have noted, Soviet times are long past (though look likely to be returning), and the Orthodox Church continues to insist that the false synods which abolished the Greek Catholic Churches in Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia and elsewhere were legitimate, uncoerced expressions of the will of the faithful of those communities. It's bad why a Church lies to others, but it's worse when it lies to itself.

Shlomo Stuart,


Right on Brother!

What is also sad is Our Churches desire for unification also over rides Our Leaders responsibility to seek justice. For one, the Ukrainian as well as the Romanian Churches should be made into Patriarchates. To me "Major-Archbishops" is just a false way of saying Patriarch. Two, The Russian Greek Catholic Church as well as the Gerogian Greek Catholic Church should have heirarchs put in place. The needs of Our faithful needs to be fulfilled.

I hope that the next pope is ecumenical, but also one that puts Catholic needs before that of other Apostolic Churches.

Fush BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

Thank you Deacon.
Columba

The posts by danman, DMD, and Deacon Richard say it all - I'd encourage others to read them. From DMD


Many years,

Neil

With all due respect, the situations are not equivalent. Nobody was rounding up people in Pennsylvania and sending them to the GULAG. Nobody was seizing property by force, and assigning it to another. And no Church was colluding with the secular powers to destroy another Church.

Furthermore, in the case of Metropolitan Nicholas and Metropolitan Judson, there was a true will to forgiveness and conciliation. To the extent that both sides offended against the other, there were apologies and contrition.

Such has not been the case with regard to the destruction of the Eastern Catholic Churches in Eastern Europe. There has been no admission of wrongdoing, hence there can be no apology, and no real effort at forgiveness and reconciliation. In fact, the Orthodox steadfastly reject the notion that they either did anything wrong or benefited in any way from the destruction of the Unia.

At best, we have gotten some pretty tepid statements along the lines of "certain actions taken in the 1940s were not necessarily beneficial to the Eastern Catholic Churches"--which is a lot like Germany saying something along the lines of "certain actions taken in the 1940s were not necessarily beneficial to the Jewish people".

And that brings up the real comparison: After World War II, Germany made a good faith effort to live up to the crimes of its past. It acknowledged what the Nazis did, and attempted, as best one possibly could, to make amends to the survivors and their descendants. Japan, on the other hand, has never acknowledged the slightest wrongdoing in World War II, refuses to take responsibility, and has offered neither apologies nor compensation to the victims of its crimes--which is why Japan and the Japanese are still loathed throughout much of Asia, not to mention Australia.

I was just wondering how one gets the idea the UGCC had full autonomy under the atheist governments? This just seems silly to me. I read the life of Blessed Theodore Romzha and it paints a different picture than full autonomy, more like complete and systematic destruction. While I haven't read Finding a Hidden Church yet I imagine it will also show how the Greek Catholic Church was violently persecuted by the godless Soviets.

It's really very simple: when they take everything you have and drive you underground, they no longer have any hold on you. They might kill you, but they cannot defeat you. It makes sense, in a very paradoxical manner.

Indeed. Whereas, by contrast, once you have some measure of state sanction by an atheist government you are bound to compromise in some manner. This was true of the MP as well as some Catholic hierarchs in Poland etc.

In terms of a reference earlier in this thread to "soviet times returning", actually I hold out some hope that the Church may inform Russian policy rather than have policy dictated to it. The idea of a Church informing policy may be abhorrent to westerners brought up with the idea of separation of powers, but it is not in an of itself a bad idea.

True. The telling point is how you respond once the oppressor is overthrown. A true Christian would tell the truth, regardless of personal consequences, and would endeavor to atone for whatever compromises were made.

I, too, hold out hope that the Church may become the moral center of Russian life, but I sincerely believe for that to happen, the Russian Orthodox Church must confront the history of the Soviet period in a fully transparent manner.

[quote=StuartK][quote]It did not neccessarily always have a say in what happened under its auspices in Soviet Time[/quote]s.

As I have noted, Soviet times are long past (though look likely to be returning), and the Orthodox Church continues to insist that the false synods which abolished the Greek Catholic Churches in Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia and elsewhere were legitimate, uncoerced expressions of the will of the faithful of those communities. It's bad why a Church lies to others, but it's worse when it lies to itself. [/quote]

20 years is long past, eh? Then we should expect that 45+ years would be too ancient to even talk of.

And I'd be more careful about accusations of false characterizations of false synods as legitimate, uncoerced expressions of the will of the faithful.

Btw, in Slovakia, the unions of Brest, Uzhhorod and Alba Iulia were legalized once again during Communism. Not all went back, but the post communist government decades later gave them all the properties anyway.

[quote=Fr Serge Keleher]Sorry to contradict, but the cases are not parallel. Eastern Orthodoxy continued, in Poland and in Austria-Hungary. Moreover, it was a century before L'viv and Peremyshyl accepted the Union of Brest - doesn't sound like force to me. After the Stauropegion Brotherhood accepted the Union, another Eastern Orthodox parish and church were immediately organized in L'viv, under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Metropolitan of Bukovyna. In Transylvania, once the dust settled, so to speak, the Greek-Catholics were at most about 50%. In the portions of Serbo-Croatia which belonged to Austria-Hungary, not only were the Orthodox not disturbed but the government financed the printing of service-books. And so on.

Such conditions did not apply in the USSR or in Communist Romania.

Fr. Serge [/quote]

I am always amuzed, with a grisely humor, by Muslims who claim that the continued existence of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul proves how tolerant Islam is.

The Orthodox were outlawed in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1596. A clandestine hierarchy was consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1620: the bishop of L'viv was forced to subscribe to the "Union of Brest," but then went illegally, but canonically, over to Iasi, Moldavia for consecration, and Patriarch Theophanes III came, illegally as foreign i.e. Orthodox clergy were banned in the realm, to consecrate a bishop for Peremyshl. He ended up consecrating the whole new hierarchy. When the King had to finally admit the failure of Brest, he refused to recognize the clandestinely ordained bishops, and insisted on others.
Four hundred years Union of Brest (1596-1996) By Bert Groen, William Peter van den Bercken
http://books.google.com/books?id=9FN9gT7CQw4C&pg=PA67&dq=Brest+Patriarch+of+Jerusalem&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Brest%20Patriarch%20of%20Jerusalem&f=false

There was no Bukowina until 1777-1786.

The dust didn't settle in Transylvania until Adolf Nikolaus von Buccow rampaged in the 1760's in a final effort for Marie Theresa to exterminate the "schismatic Vlachs," hunting down Orthodox monks, blowing up Orthodox monasteries, tearing down Orthodox Churches, etc.

At least you got the Serbian part right (although the Serbs had to fight for those rights: they had been banned from having schools, printshops etc. but directed to those controled by the Vatican's hierarchy. Only after two decades of requesting, in 1727, did the Serbs begin to get the right to their own schools etc. Of course, the Serbs also proved themseles protecting the frontier and protecting Hapsburg interests against the Hungarians.

[quote=StuartK][quote]Whereas, by contrast, once you have some measure of state sanction by an atheist government you are bound to compromise in some manner. This was true of the MP as well as some Catholic hierarchs in Poland etc.[/quote]

True. The telling point is how you respond once the oppressor is overthrown. A true Christian would tell the truth, regardless of personal consequences, and would endeavor to atone for whatever compromises were made.

I, too, hold out hope that the Church may become the moral center of Russian life, but I sincerely believe for that to happen, the Russian Orthodox Church must confront the history of the Soviet period in a fully transparent manner. [/quote]

St. Alexis Kabalyuk

Help yourself; it's not mine, anyway . . .

I think I already know all three attorney jokes that are funny, though . . .

EDIT after reading the rest of the thread:

For crying out loud, folks . . . horrible things and great injustice happened to all "sides" . . . each side demanding that the other admit to fault in all matters and apologize when both clearly have transgressed, regardless of the comparative levels, is hardly a Christian response and hardly a reason for "Christians" to oppose Christian unity. If we can put an end to this false schism, *The* Church will be composed of those formerly belonging to each side of the childish split . . .

hawk, esq.