Dear Yuhannon,
I apologise for so wrongly (and stupidly) assuming that "poosh" was, in any way, part of your name.
I also hope that you will strive to educate ignorant people like me about your language and culture so that ignorance, such as I have demonstrated, will be less noticeable in our future correspondence.
1) I don't know about hard and fast categories concerning ecclesial territoriality. There are cases today when Rome asks Constantinople not to accept certain breakaway Catholic groups into Orthodoxy and vice-versa. Those two Churches do have some system of defining and respecting each other's territoriality - but I wouldn't be able to say what it is exactly.
Rome has already told the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church to stick to its historical territories of pastoral operation. We've always been told that in the diaspora and now we are told this in our ancestral homeland. And yet, eparchies are springing up throughout Ukraine. I guess we don't always listen to Rome. I think God loves us for such disobedience though
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Russian Greek-Catholics have it much worse though - they are directly under the RC jurisdiction in Russia and cannot set up their own eparchies. Only Roman Catholicism may do that in Russia so as not to offend Russian Orthodoxy. This is yet another example of Rome totally misreading the cultural and historical situation in Russia. And I agree with Professor Dan above with respect to Orthodoxy in these lands. Evangelism will fail if it will result in greater inter-ecclesial tensions.
2) As for the Anglicans in the Middle East, I understand that people do hold them in esteem, as I've discussed with Bishop Henry Hill, the author of "Light from the East" and with Fr. Marcos at St Marcos here in the Queen City of Toronto. That relationship is something for everyone to emulate, especially in modern Russia today.
3) I am happy to hear, and now cases of, aid to Orthodox Churches. I also am painfully aware of Catholic missionizing among the Orthodox. I once had a public argument with Greek-Catholic monastics in Ukraine who insisted on distributing Catholic "conversion" pamphlets to Orthodox school-children and insisted on praying for Orthodox conversion to Catholicism with them. I have seen that with my own eyes and so have many of my relatives and friends.
The Catholic Church is not the native Church of Russia. Of course, who can oppose Catholic outreach in the Catholic countries formerly under communism? This is not about exclusivity at all, but sensitivity to the fact that Eastern European Orthodox cultures have always had their Orthodox Churches at the HEART of their identity as a people and their cultural way of life.
Rather than go and try to convert Russians to what would be for them culturally foreign Churches, we should be supporting Orthodox evangelization which is growing by leaps and bounds there. The message of Our Lady of Fatima is being fulfilled in the Orthodox Churches there - Christians are receiving the sacraments and are attending Churches, miraculous icons and saints are being glorified and the Gospel of Christ is being heard and accepted.
Again, this is not exclusivity, but ecclesial/cultural sensitivity. The fact is that the West has failed miserably in this regard and has only caused unnecessary tension among the Churches of the East in this respect.
4) You mention the issue of religious liberty. However, there are many countries where homogeneity of religious practice is an ages-old tradition, including among several European countries where Roman Catholicism has always figured prominently. There is the "mainstream religion" and then minority religions.
Even in democratic USA, Protestantism is the mainstream religion and Catholicism has always been a minority faith. Catholics (and even Lutherans whose rituals made them resemble Catholics and so they tended to be lumped together with Catholics) were discriminated against in the land where "all men are created equal."
The fact that Ontario has, only now, its first Catholic Premier also indicates the fact taht Protestantism holds sway in Canada, even though half the population here is Catholic.
Religious strife and tension can be caused by a number of things. I would submit that the situation in India between two different religions is not the same as what is occurring in Russia between Christians.
When we "preach the Gospel," we are always communicating not only the essence of the Christian message, but also a specific cultural framework in which that Christian message is couched.
Roman Catholics going into Russia to preach to the unchurched will be, of necessity, bringing a cultural context that is truly foreign to the Russian one.
This is why evangelization has often failed in Asia - the western cultural context that came with the Christian message made the Gospel look like a religious form of Western cultural imperialism.
Russia is not a pagan territory. Russia has a Christian culture that is over a millennium old. Russia sent missionaries into China and Christianized Alaska etc. Russia is not unchurched at all. Its Church suffered persecution for Christ the likes of which Roman Catholicism has not known - thankfully.
This is why we are not being fair to the tradition of Russian Christianity when we do not respect it by trying to introduce Western forms of Christianity. The Pope of Rome respects Russian Christianity highly, notwithstanding the apprehensions and feelings of Orthodox Christians.
Earlier in his pontificate, I remember him saying that Moscow was a "Third Rome." There is no greater commendation of Russian Christianity than that.
This has nothing to do with religious liberty interpreted as license. It has everything to do with respect and sensitivity. Without those two values, I believe we cannot claim to be Christians.
5) I did not say the Catholic Church offered material inducements to join it in Russia. I was thinking of Protestant sects who do this and I have family members over there who have become Protestants, not because they accept Protestantism, but for those material benefits.
But the fact is that many people do see joining Western Christian groups as a possible way out of their situation of poverty and misery in the former Soviet Union. Some may wish to "try something new" (which is also why you will find Hare Krishna Ukrainian and Russian children in schools).
My point relates more to the fact that people there are vulnerable and see anything Western as suggesting a chance at material prosperity and the like.
So, please do not accuse me of what I did not say. I do know of people who have joined the Latin Catholic Church over there, including two family members, who have done so primarily because they want to be with a Church that, for them, represents the materially prosperous West. That is not the fault of the Latin Church, to be sure. But it does point to the vulnerability of the people in this and other respects.
I apologise to you, Yuhannon, for anything that I have said that has caused you offense.
I stand by what I've said in everything else.
Alex
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