As I understand it, the problem for the Russian Orthodox is theological, and not merely political or petty.
On the one hand, they are not in communion with the Catholic Church. On the other hand, they recognize the Patriarch of the West, the Pope, as being senior in dignity to the other patriarchs, the First Among Equals.
And this puts the Russian Patriarchate in an impossible position, under the current understanding. On the one hand, they owe a duty of respect to their senior in dignity. On the other hand, they must not share communion with the leader of a Church they do not consider to be doctrinally correct.
The only way to avoid the impossibility of the circumstances of a Patriarch paying homage to the Pope, whose religion the Patriarch's religion says has lapsed into error, is to avoid the meeting.
The Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople has met the Pope and performed a common service, but it had to be carefully scripted, with the liturgy being adapted from the Eastern Rites so as to NOT contain the "filioque" clause ("and from the Son") in the Creed, which the Orthodox find so problematic (indeed, it was the proximate cause of the Great Schism).
Moscow is in a different place in its emergence from domination than Constantinople or Greece are, and the Russian hierarchs find the prospect much more troubling from a theological basis.
And for his part the Pope has not forced the issue. He has sent relics back to Moscow, but though he could have just declared his intentions to come, and probably would not have been banned from the gig by the Russian government, he did not. John Paul's purpose was to promote reconciliation, not grandstand in Moscow and damage such relationships as there are between Rome and "the Third Rome".
Someday.
What are your thoughts on this:
That which the author sees as Russian obstinate backwardness is an asset when it comes to confronting the secular humanist, increasingly pagan West. Somehow I don't imagine gay "marriage" ceremonies contemplated by those Russian-bear priests.
In other words, as conservatives we praised the late Pope inasmuch as he struggled to preserve the 2000 years of Christianity and roll back at least the most egregious abuses ascribed to Vatican II. I doubt that Mr. Peter of Rome (I can't shake the impression it's a pseudonym) has the same perspective.
It has a lot to do with the 600 years of attempted forced conversions that started when the Kieven princes asked for help against the Mongols and instead got invaded by the Poles, Lithuanians, Swedes and Teutonics, all by Papel decree. The sacking of Constintinople by the Fourth Crusade, only added to this, also the butchering of Orthodox Christians in Jerusalem, along with the Jews and Islamics, during the First Crusade.