Posted on 03/16/2007 7:57:01 AM PDT by NYer
| President Putin is an Orthodox Christian |
| (epa) |
The Russian president has already visited the Vatican three times, but this will be his first meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.
As a Vatican cardinal, Benedict was responsible for helping to set up a meeting of John Paul II and Aleksy. The meeting never took place due to "insurmountable differences" between the two sides.
Troubled Ties
Historical animosity between the two churches runs deep. The Orthodox Church has accused the Vatican of aggressive proselytizing in Russia. The Catholic Church has denied the accusations and has expressed concern over the treatment of Russia's Catholic minority. The two churches have also argued over ecclesiastical property in Ukraine.
But some observers have suggested that there is a greater chance for reconciliation with Pope Benedict.
First, Russia enjoys better relations with Germany, the country of the new pope's birth, than it does with the Poland of John Paul.
President Putin praying at the Jordan River on February 13 (TASS) Second, Putin, who lived in East Germany in the 1980s, speaks fluent German. Today's talks will reportedly be conducted in German.
The meeting is expected to concentrate on global issues, such as the Middle East, religious extremism, and global terrorism. Putin is also expected to discuss with the pope the possible return of a historic Russian church in the southern Italian city of Bari. Putin plans to pray in the church, which was built by Russia in 1913, on March 14.
Also up for discussion will be a possible meeting between Benedict and the Russian patriarch. Such a meeting, most likely on neutral territory, has been on the agenda for years, but, because of poor relations, has never been finalized.
Shared Fears
Despite the churches' differences, they have a lot in common. Both feel threatened by what they see as rampant secularism and the spread of the Islamic faith.
Commenting recently on Putin's visit, the Russian Orthodox Church's envoy to European institutions, Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria said: "There is growing understanding that Catholics and Russian Orthodox [believers] face common challenges like militant secularism and relativism, atheism, and moral dissipation."
Putin has been adept at using the Orthodox Church for his own political ends. Some observers have suggested that he sees the Orthodox Church as the ideological arm of the Kremlin.
Using The Church
The Orthodox Church has often touted the Kremlin's line, for example attacking the European Union's Energy Charter.
And with the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad expected to officially reunite on May 17 after decades of schism, Putin is being seen as the "unifier of the church."
In the last year, Putin has also made efforts to mobilize the international religious community to support his political line.
In July 2006, ahead of Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, Putin convened the World Religious Summit in Moscow, which brought together hundreds of clerics from around the world.
Or as Channel One commentator Pyotr Tolstoy said recently, "Moscow is the 'third Rome'" and due to the lack of a "second Rome," "relations with the 'first Rome' are very important to us."
Catholic Ping
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Excuse my ignorance, but what is a "Vatican cardinal?" Are journalists required to have any understanding of the subjects they cover?
I know he may be (or may not be) an enemy of the USA, but I have a fair amount of respect for Putin.
Is Putin a devout believer? It's hard to say.
The Orthodox Church is admirable in many ways, but it also has a long history of deep involvement in politics. The Catholic Church has sometimes had similar involvement, but the separation of Church and State is more basic to Catholic understanding than to the Orthodox.
Putin has used the Orthodox Church as one of his means of control, and the Orthodox Church has used him as a way of keeping other Christians--Catholic or Protestant--out of Russia.
So, is he devout? I don't know. But he's certainly a power manipulator who knows how to use the Orthodox Church to his own advantage. Yet it's by no means clear that there has been any kind of real religious revival in Russia since the fall of Communism. Immorality is widespread; church attendance is very low; abortion is rampant; crime is rampant. It's not clear that the Orthodox Church has benefited spiritually from this mafia-style relationship.
I think this article is important because many here don't seem to understand the Russia under Putin - seeing it through the Cold War mentality.
What motivates Russia as Putin has shaped it is a more nationalist mentality than the one that existed under the 'internationale' of the Communists who were not all Russians.
How many Western leaders persuaded a Muslim head of state to set aside land for a Church?
Why is it that outside of the Vatican the only other European head of state of any note that calls for Europe not to lose her Christian heritage is Putin?
Sadly you are right, and demographically Russia faces an existential crisis. I would hope that the Orthodox Church which is so deeply bound up with Russian history and nationalism could lead the country out of its moral morass.
Some years ago I was in Odessa (Ukraine, but still very Russian with statues of Pushkin and with Orthodox churches.) Accompanied by a young female guide, I visited the Orthodox cathedral and the guide went around kissing all the icons. She acted as if it were most normal, and it pleased me that a girl in her early twenties had her faith in tact despite the Communist plague.
Sure they have -- the Lateran Treaty of 1929.
The first RC hierarch in America, John Carroll, endorsed the concept of separation of church and state.
Welcome to FR.
Thanks - I keep forgetting how to make paragraphs here though - Sorry for squishing the paragraphs up.
Yes, as I said there have been exceptions. The reason for the Papal States and then Vatican City, which the Pope certainly did accept, was to try to keep the Papacy separate from any of the major powers. For instance, the French came in at one time and carried to Pope off to Avignon, thinking this would be a good way to expand their political control. It was not a happy time.
Also, many bishops have at times been rulers of cities or small states, notably in Germany.
But these are the exceptions. Much more typical was the running battle between the Popes and the Emperors over who was in charge. The de facto solution was that the Emperor was the highest secular authorities and the Pope was the highest religious authority.
Things tended to go differently in Russia, where the Tsars and the Orthodox Church worked closely together, perhaps too closely. And the same earlier, in Constantinople before its fall.
Of course Christianity will always be sometimes subversive of worldly power. Rulers have always tried to use it to control their subjects, but it has often turned in their hands and struck at them instead.
In Dostoevsky, Father Zosima seems to stand for that sort of vision, of a Christianity that would be more than an instrument of state power.
As I said, I don't KNOW that Putin is not genuinely religious, but he certainly falls nicely into the ancient pattern of Tsar and Patriarch working together.
I assumed that till now the Vatican has refused the annual financial convention of the Lateran Treaty of 1929 and this refusal of the payments is seen as a way that Vatican can show that it is accepting the treaty that settled the loss of the Papal States under protest.
Am I wrong?
Did the Pope not crown Charlemagne?
Is not the Christian credo to be loyal to secular authorities when faith is not an issue? Did St. Maurice and his Egyptian Christian legions not accept martyrdom rather than obey /disobey their emperor's order rather than fight their lawful secular ruler?
The Christian relationship you speak of only came about starting with the enlightenment when the church was severed from the life of the people. One may argue that may be a good or bad thing for our modern age but it was not unique to Eastern Orthodox.
The Orthodox never had a patriarch rule as a king like we saw in the Papal states nor was there ever a Church run city state like we saw the Protestant and the Catholic churches have during the Middle Ages (Bishops ruling over fiefdoms and as secular vassals to their secular lords).
So until the post Christian era of the West the Orthodox church was actually less linked to the state than the churches of the West were. One to think on.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
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