Posted on 11/17/2014 1:22:17 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
The end of communist rule in Europe, which began 25 years ago this month, was not all positive for Christianity because it brought tensions between Rome and Russia back to the surface, a senior Vatican official said on Monday.
Cardinal Kurt Koch, the top Roman Catholic official for inter-church relations, said the re-emergence of Eastern Catholic churches in Ukraine and Romania after decades of suppression had created major tensions with the Russian Orthodox Church.
Russian Orthodox leaders have accused the Vatican-aligned Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church of trying to take back churches and woo away believers from the Moscow Orthodox Patriarchate. The Ukrainian church and the Vatican deny this.
Moscow prelates cite this as a hurdle to closer ties between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church, which for decades prayed for the conversion of the Soviet Union only to see the newly resurgent Russian Orthodox Church become a difficult partner.
"The changes in 1989 were not advantageous for ecumenical relations," Koch told Vatican Radio. "The Eastern Catholic churches banned by Stalin re-emerged, especially in Ukraine and Romania, and from the Orthodox came the old accusation about Uniate churches and proselytism."
"Uniate" refers to eastern churches with Orthodox-style liturgies that recognize the pope as their spiritual leader.
Pope Francis will meet Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul late this month. The Orthodox spiritual head supports more cooperation with Rome, but cannot ignore the wary Russians, who make up two-thirds of the world's 300 million Orthodox.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
The end of the famine was not all good news, as labor disputes arose in its wake.
Is that another one of those Koch brothers?
Was total suppression better than “tension”?
Wow...I had to check if this was satire. The church is a joke now.
“...woo away believers from the Moscow Orthodox Patriarchate. The Ukrainian church and the Vatican deny this.”
I’m not always a huge fan of the Catholic Church, but isn’t wooing people from other faiths what churches are generally supposed to do?
“Surprise, Surprise! - Ping”
Looks like the Lefty Pope-pretender yearns for the good old days of Communist repression in Eastern Europe.
Whoda thunk it?
I not sure if this Koch Brothers LOL!
Uh-huh ...
Maybe not good for all of Christianity...
Just good for Christians who have the audacity to like living...
Persecution can cause a group to focus, their plight be seen with sympathy, and their numbers increase.
When things go too peacefully, there is a tendency to become less devoted.
Depends. God wants Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, and Taoists, among others, to accept Christ's salvation and lordship over their lives, and accomplishing this is part of what churches are supposed to do. The kingdom of heaven is not enlarged, however, when a Catholic who has Christ's salvation becomes a Pentecostal, or vice versa.
THE ARTICLE IS ABOUT CATHOLIC RELATIONS WITH
THE ORTHODOX CHURCHES
************* END OF ALERT *************
I don’t know if its this Pope or if its his subordinates but something has run off the rails in the Vatican.
Wow. I don't think you read the article.
Whoda thunk so many people would read the headline and ignore the article.
Reuters is good at what they do.
so....the Vatican prefers to have Russians living under an atheist dictatorship rather than following Orthodox Christianity because they can’t stand the sibling rivalry?
Absolutely tone deaf.
There. Fixed it. Freedom is never good for Catholicism.
Really? Then why have different denominations? Why ever start a new one? It makes no difference to me, but I would think it must make a huge difference to a Catholic or a Pentecostal.
Excellent comparison. Cardinal Koch is an ass and should be muzzled. If the Catholic Church needs the protection of Soviet Communism, then the Church should die along with the Soviet State - and for the same reasons.
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