The executive secretary of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of the Russian federation, Igor Kowalewsky, acknowledged that representatives of the Vatican have made mistakes in Russia, which could be considered proselytism (conversion of Orthodox believers to Catholicism). "Several cases have evoked misunderstanding and could be interpreted as proselytism, although this is not an intentional practice," Kowalewsky declared on Thursday in Moscow at a briefing upon the conclusion of the first session of a joint working group for reviewing problems in relations between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.
Kowalewsky explained: "The Catholic church proceeds from the premise that Russia is not a mission field. This is not New Guinea nor an African country in which it is necessary to preach Christianity. This is a country with a thousand-year Christian culture."
According to Kowalewsky, "on the Vatican's part, there is no proselytism as some kind of directive or as a goal to catholicize Russia." The representative of the Vatican considers that, on the whole, "the present time is one of frost in relations between our churches, but it is still not winter."
Meanwhile, the Russian Orthodox church does not share the optimism on this account. "It will be possible to talk about a break in relations at the time we cease receiving from the provinces concrete signals about cases of activity strategically aims at converting to a different faith and culture people with Orthodox roots, and when people feet that the Catholic church is not an enemy, nor competitor, nor aggressor, but a friend, comrade, and brother," the vice-chairman of the Department of External Relations of the Moscow patriarchate, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, stated at the briefing.
In this regard he cited a whole series of concrete examples of proselytism by Catholic missionaries on Russian territory. Thus, in the Moscow suburb of Lobnia, a Catholic parish that maintains the "Rodnichok" children's home gives corresponding religious education to children from various regions of Russia. A similar situation developed also in one of the children's homes of Novosibirsk. In the Moscow microdistrict of Liublino there is now being organized a new Catholic parish whose rector, as Fr Vsevolod put it, does not conceal his missionary endeavors.
In addition, Catholics conduct catechetical discussions among residents of Novosibirsk, taking advantage of the city television station, and on the premises of the No. 23 secondary school of Murmansk, in Angarsk of Irkutsk province, and in a number of other cities.
The representative of the Moscow patriarchate considers such a practice unacceptable. "When a church tries to discuss a division of spheres of missionary responsibility, it is important to understand that we are not talking about relations between competitive businesses but about the ethics of inter-church relations, which arose way back in antiquity," Fr Vsevolod stressed. At the same time he called the Catholic side to follow the command of the apostle Paul, who said that "it is not necessary to preach in a place where the name of Christ has already been proclaimed."
The representative of the Russian church expressed the hope that these principles will win out and on their basis a way can be found out of the complex inter-church situation both in Russia and in the countries of CIS.
As a positive example of cooperation of the Orthodox and Catholic churches in Russia Fr Vsevolod cited the experience of Yaroslavl province, where a Catholic center is conducting work with drug addicts and whose leaders plan to invite Orthodox priests to provide pastoral support for their clients.
The joint working group of the two churches was created as a result of the February visit to Moscow by the head of the papal coucil on promotion of Christian unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper. (tr. by PDS, posted 6 May 2004) http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/0405a.html#11