Posted on 04/26/2005 10:19:24 AM PDT by TaxachusettsMan
"We don't know if that's going to affect (relations) with the Russian Orthodox church. The future will show," Interfax new agency quoted Patriarch Alexy II as saying. Metropolitan Kirill, a senior official in the Russian Orthodox church, attended the meeting with Benedict on Alexy's behalf.
Alexy ruled out the possibility of inviting Benedict to Russia in the near future, calling on the new pope to address the proselytizing of Orthodox followers by Catholic missionaries that he alleges went on during John Paul's reign. These accusations led Alexy to block John Paul from visiting Russia in 2004, ending the late pontiff's long-held dream to visit the country.
"There cannot be a visit for the sake of a visit. There cannot be a meeting purely for television cameras," Alexy said Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalcatholicreporter.org ...
Better they should spend some time and energy on a TRUE ecumenical dud, Alexy II, Patriarch of Moscow, a man who hasn't smiled since birth and who hasn't had a nice word to say about the Roman Catholic Church since he learned how to talk.
He has a "problem" with the Eastern Churches who are in communion with the Pope. Particularly with the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Understandable. Since Stalin liquidated that Church, stole its buildings, and martyred its clergy and religious in staggering numbers back in the mid to late 1940s.
When the Soviet Union fell, parish after parish (and more frightening for Alexy, no doubt, priest after priest and parishioner after parishioner) came out of the catacombs to declare their restored communion with "the Pope of Rome" as they sing in the Divine Liturgy (about five or six commemorations in the Eastern Divine Liturgy compared to our single one in the Roman Rite!).
The reaction from up above - Moscow - was predictable, but over and over again the press echoes the Party Line (make no mistake, the Soviets may be gone, but it's still the Party line!) about the dastardly "proselytizing" by Roman Catholics.
Now tell me: if the Episcopal Church in the USA had stolen all our Roman Catholic church buildings in the 1940s, with the strong arm of the US government directing the take-over, and we had a chance to take them all back and declare our Roman Catholic loyalty publically 50 or 60 years later: do you think the Episcopal Church would be gracious or nasty about it? Do you think some born Episcopalians would jump ship and join the formerly persecuted Catholics?
That's pretty much what has been happening in the domain of Alexy II.
We can send Cardinal Kasper over on 100 trips, with the choir from the Russicum to provide background music, and restore the icon that belonged to the Russian Orthodox - and it's STILL not good enough! Pope Paul VI once knelt on the floor of St Peter's Basilica and kissed the feet of the Orthodox delegation to Vatican II. I'll not bother with the next (very obvious) line, but apparently even foot-kissing isn't enough!
As Fr. Robert Taft, S.J., a Vatican expert on the whole "problem" says, "They [Orthodox] believe rightly but behave badly."
Lay Roman Catholics in the USA have no problem offering vocal criticism of our hierarchy when we think it is due. It would be nice to hear some Russian Orthodox faithful (and maybe even some bishops!) tell Alexy: "Your Holiness: new Pope, new day, new attitude!" In fact they might even send Alexy the words of the supposedly "hard-line" Pope Benedict on the morning after his election:
"Nourished and sustained by the Eucharist, Catholics cannot but feel stimulated to tend towards that full unity for which Christ hoped in the Cenacle. Peter's Successor knows that he must take on this supreme desire of the Divine Master in a particularly special way. To him, indeed, has been entrusted the duty of strengthening his brethren.
"Thus, in full awareness and at the beginning of his ministry in the Church of Rome that Peter bathed with his blood, the current Successor assumes as his primary commitment that of working tirelessly towards the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers. This is his ambition, this is his compelling duty. He is aware that to do so, expressions of good feelings are not enough. Concrete gestures are required to penetrate souls and move consciences, encouraging everyone to that interior conversion which is the basis for all progress on the road of ecumenism.
"Theological dialogue is necessary. A profound examination of the historical reasons behind past choices is also indispensable. But even more urgent is that 'purification of memory,' which was so often evoked by John Paul II, and which alone can dispose souls to welcome the full truth of Christ. It is before Him, supreme Judge of all living things, that each of us must stand, in the awareness that one day we must explain to Him what we did and what we did not do for the great good that is the full and visible unity of all His disciples.
"The current Successor of Peter feels himself to be personally implicated in this question and is disposed to do all in his power to promote the fundamental cause of ecumenism. In the wake of his predecessors, he is fully determined to cultivate any initiative that may seem appropriate to promote contact and agreement with representatives from the various Churches and ecclesial communities. Indeed, on this occasion too, he sends them his most cordial greetings in Christ, the one Lord of all."
So let's be honest:
how do you view the KILLING of all those Ukrainian Catholic priests and religious under Stalin?
Have we heard any formal APOLOGIES yet from Alexy II?
UKRAINIAN CATHOLICS were NOT Russian Orthodox until they were FORCED to abandon their Eastern Catholic communion with the Pope and BECOME Russian Orthodox or die.
So there's the truth.
As opposed to the nonsense YOU posted.
Catholic church isn't spending any money in Russia, it is poor demagogy form the KGB agent Alexy II (whatever some people will tell, that is just true)
Amen!
>>>>>>He has a "problem" with the Eastern Churches who are in communion with the Pope. Particularly with the Ukrainian Catholic Church. Understandable. Since Stalin liquidated that Church, stole its buildings, and martyred its clergy and religious in staggering numbers back in the mid to late 1940s.
You are right: the Orthodox treatment of the Ukrainian Catholics is a scandal.
Given the history of the Russian Orthodox Church identifying with the Russian state, the best thing for the Russian Orthodox, let alone everyone else, is religious pluralism in Russia.
The worst thing that the German Church did was to accept a Church tax. People resent it. They should give it up forthwith. Why keep empty churches open?
Pray for the Russian Orthodox Church to be liberated from the Communist-Party domination it suffers under.
Born in 1929, Alexi II was ordained in 1953, and was made Bishop of Estonia in 1961 at only 32 years old. In 1964, he was made Archbishop, and in 1968 -- at only 39 years old -- was made metropolitan.
A 35-year-old Archbishop? According to documents found in Estonian KGB Archives, he had become a KGB agent at 29 years old. He was routinely honored with state and clerical titles by the Stalinist regime, and was a major promoter, and sometime leader of the World Council of Churches, which has been exposed as a KGB plot to infect Western churches with Marxist ideology. He became Russian Patriarch in 1990, under Boris Yeltsin, and has tightly held Vladimir Putin's party line.
O... and this is interesting:
the Patriarchy of Moscow was founded in 1589. The last Partiarch of that line was Adrian, who served until 1700. He was replaced by a coadjutor, and then simply a head of the Russian Holy Synod.
The Patriarchy was re-established by the Communist Party, to create a centralized, state-run church.
I therefore even wonder if the Catholic Church should regard the Patriarchy as a representative of the Russian church at all. Naturally, if you are trying to restore the unity of the ancient Church, you like to have a partner in negotiations. If Alexy refuses to talk, however, maybe Benedict should talk with other Archbishops. I'd love to see Alexy's reaction to frutful negotiations with Belarussians or Estonians. OTOH, I can readily see how they'd be unwelcoming to a "back-door" talks.
Ping!
You'll love this insanity.
Has your nose shot out to the other side of the room yet? Good thing you're no Pinocchio.
With all due regards, are you stoned out of your mind? How about the killing of 300,000+ ORTHODOX priests, nuns, monks and deacons? Who's going to appologize for that? Gads, you want the chief victims to apologize for the crimes of their oppressors? Better tell the Jews to get busy too then.
Actually, I wouldn't know where to begin on this thread. I'd be here all day.
It is certainly amusing to see defenders of Uniatism complain about the use of the power of the state to promote one church and suppress another. The entire existence of the Ukrainian Catholic church is due to such techniques.
The main difference is that in the case of the Soviets it was an avowedly Godless and atheist internationalist organization suppressing an international religious organization that it saw as a political threat.
In the case of Uniatism, the violence, trickery and suppression of Orthodoxy was done in the name of Christ. There's plenty of blame to go around and plenty of stones to be thrown in every direction when it comes to the clash of Orthodoxy and the Roman church in Eastern Europe. None of it leads one to believe that we should be anxious to throw ourselves into the arms of reunion.
Personally, I'm very enthusiastic about the new Pope Benedict, as a review of my posts would show. The reason that I am optimistic is that I think that during his days as Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict showed that he had great perceptive insight into the rot in the modern Roman church -- liturgical, theological, moral... I have long been a fan of his writing, even though I of course don't agree with all of it. He is the most traditionally patristic-minded hierarch I have encountered in the Roman church. On another thread in the last couple of days, an excited Catholic made the very good point that while JPII's writings mostly cited his own earlier writings and the documents of Vat II, Benedict actually cites Scripture and the Fathers...
Unless I miss my guess, he'll be so busy trying to clean up his own back-yard that he will leave us alone for awhile. JPII's persistence in trying to get into Russia was a classic case of fiddling while Rome burned...
Hm... I am pretty sure it were the Czars who were responsible.
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