VATICAN CITY (CNS) — After almost three decades of tense Catholic-Russian Orthodox relations, Pope Francis will meet Patriarch Kirill of Moscow Feb. 12 in Cuba on the pope’s way to Mexico.
It will be the first-ever meeting of a pope and Moscow patriarch, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters Feb. 5.
As Pope Francis travels to Mexico and as Patriarch Kirill makes an official visit to Cuba, the two will meet at Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport and plan to sign a joint declaration, Father Lombardi said. The pope will leave Rome earlier than planned to allow time for the meeting without forcing any changes to his schedule in Mexico, he added.
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The meeting “will mark an important stage in relations between the two churches,” said a joint declaration on the meeting.
The Cuba meeting was not an “improvisation,” Father Lombardi said; it took two years of intense planning and negotiations to schedule. Even when the idea of a meeting was just a vague hope, both Catholic and Orthodox officials insisted it would have to take place on “neutral” territory rather than at the Vatican or in Russia.
The meeting took two years of intense negotiations to schedule, and both parties insisted on neutral territory. The pope’s stop in Cuba for the meeting precedes his trip to Mexico.
Being the first ever meeting of a pope and Russian patriarch, he said, “is an event that, in the ecumenical journey and in the dialogue between Christian confessions, has an extraordinary importance.”
The meeting will come as representatives of Orthodox churches from around the world are preparing for a pan-Orthodox Council meeting in Crete in June. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians, “naturally, has been informed” of plans for the pope and Patriarch Kirill to meet and expressed “his joy for this step forward,” Father Lombardi said.
Holding a simple meeting with a Moscow patriarch, spiritual leader of the world’s largest Orthodox church, was a failed dream of St. John Paul II and an opportunity that escaped retired Pope Benedict XVI as well.
Repeatedly after the Soviet bloc began dissolving in 1989 and the once-repressed Eastern Catholic churches began functionally publicly again, Russian Orthodox leaders insisted there could be no meeting between a pope and a patriarch as long as Catholics were “proselytizing” in what the Orthodox considered their territory.
The Vatican insisted the Catholic Church rejects proselytism, which it defines as actively seeking converts from another Christian community, including through pressure or offering enticements. The Russian Orthodox had insisted such types of proselytism occurred in both Russia and Ukraine, although the Vatican said that when asked, the Orthodox provided no proof.
St. John Paul re-established the Latin-rite Catholic hierarchy of Russia in 2002, which led to the Russian Orthodox withdrawing from dialogue with the Vatican for several years. Even as tensions over the Catholic presence in Russia waned, the Russian Orthodox insisted a bigger example of proselytism was the loss of its churches in the newly independent Ukraine.
The Vatican recognized there were some instances of excessive zeal early on, but rejected the use of the term “proselytism” as a blanket description for the re-establishment of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. The Ukrainian Catholic Church was outlawed by the Soviet government in the 1940s and its property was confiscated by the government, which in turn gave some churches to the Russian Orthodox. Byzantine-rite Catholics who once could worship only in a Russian Orthodox church, returned to Catholic services and sought the return of church property.
Father Lombardi said the fact that a meeting has been scheduled “allows one to think that on various points dialogue has matured and allowed some things that were once seen as obstacles to be overcome.”
“Every step toward dialogue, understanding, a will to draw closer to each other, understand each other and walk together” after “a past of distancing themselves and even of polemics and division is a positive sign for everyone,” especially considering the huge numbers of Catholics and Russian Orthodox in the world, the spokesman said.
Jesuit Father David Nazar, rector of Rome’s Pontifical Oriental Institute and a Ukrainian Catholic from Canada, told Catholic News Service, “If this were to take place, it would be big news in the Year of Mercy. To make a step in this direction is beautiful, but also irreversible.”
Especially for Catholics in Russia and Ukraine, he said, relations with the Russian Orthodox are complicated, including because of the close relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian government, which annexed the Crimea and is supporting fighting in Eastern Ukraine.
Father Nazar described his reaction to the news as “cautiously optimistic” and said he hoped it would mark “a new beginning” in Catholic-Russian Orthodox relations.
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This seems like a great opportunity to expand the dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church and eventually reach a full reunification between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. I pray it happens.
However I find it hard to understand how the Catholic Church needs to compromise itself right from the start by insisting that “the Catholic Church rejects proselytism, as actively seeking converts from another Christian community, including through pressure or offering enticements”. My goodness. How lame and lacking in Faith, and how utterly twisted from the real definition of proselytism which is outward directed evangelization.
I fully understand the need for delicacy and extreme sensitivity in any reunification attempts, especially with the Orthodox Church which I believe has some very strong and legitimate objections to the secular drift of today’s Catholic Church. But that does not mean that the Catholic Church must appear subservient or fearful of offending by speaking the Truth as Jesus Christ would. With total clarity that would not offend because it would be spoken with a loving purpose that would be self evident. For example a statement such as: The Catholic Church welcomes the planned meeting of Pope Francis with Patriarch Kirill. This historic meeting is an opportunity to further the hope of healing the separation of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and for that matter all of Christendom. This break has gone on for too long and is a great sorrow to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Collectively we must all work to bring this unfortunate separation to an end. God demands this of us.
As to the new toned down definition of proselytism, this is just another example of how morally weak spirited the Catholic Church has seemingly become. Instead of following the direct command of Jesus Christ to His Apostles. To be action oriented and to “Go Forth” and evangelize by spreading the His Good Word and making converts of all nations – through open and loving direct dialogue, today’s Catholic Church has apparently falsely rationalized this direct Apostolic action command into one of non-action. Even worse the Church appears to have transferred the main evangelization responsibility from the Apostolic i.e. the Bishops and their priests/religious, to the laity. Since when is the responsibility to convert the world to Catholicism or to reunify Christendom the direct responsibility of the laity? And since when is evangelization meant to be passive and introspective and osmotically transferred? Isn’t evangelization supposed to be outbound directed and lovingly confrontational? Based on the direct command of Jesus Christ?
This is a defeatist strategy that is doomed to fail because the Church is consciously abdicating its institutional and Apostolic evangelization responsibilities, by transferring them to the Catholic laity who are not spiritually equipped to be missionaries or to evangelize. The Church is further remiss in not even clearly defining what its overall evangelization objectives are. So one has to ask is the Catholic Church really serious about pro-active evangelization? If so then what are its objectives? To reunify Christendom? To bring lapsed Catholics back to the Church?. To carry out its full mandate from Jesus Christ and evangelize the whole world, including the religion of Islam? Does the Church even have the supernatural grace and the steadfast confidence and willpower to make this happen? The knowing Faith that it is the will of God to have one worldwide and universal Catholic Church? That with this great Faith in God all things are possible? Even the seemingly impossible!