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You don't seem to have a problem when Catholics convert to Orthodoxy. You invoke the apostolic nature of the Orthodox Church as a reason for the Catholic Church to stop "enticing" Orthodox over to Rome. Yet, you do not seem to be able to see the equal set of circumstances from our POV. Why do Orthodox Churches "entice" (I'll use your word)Catholics over to Orthodoxy, when they are leaving a Church with an equally apostolic nature? Or is the issue really that you don't recognize the apostolicity of the Catholic Church?

At best, BOTH sides, in different places and circumstances, are acting like children in the matter. Turf wars are unseemly. But, to the extent that a reunification of our Churches hasn't taken place yet, I do believe that the Catholic minority in the Ukraine *is* within its rights to try to get some of its historical churches back. Besides, if your beef is about "proselytizing," you should know that, last year, I think, John Paul II came out with what essentially is an order to catholics *not* to proselytize the Orthodox in Russia and Ukraine. Personally, if anything, I think he went too far, going even to the extent of all but barring converts who *seek us out*.

How awfully silly and venal this must all look to Christ!

I'm not trying to ask the patriarch of a church to join hands.

That is the difference. You cannot simutaenously say 'we are one' and 'you are different, convert and give us your properties or we'll take them by force from the state'. The Catholic Pope keeps calling for a visit to Russia and an end to the schism for years.

John Paul has been denying proselytizing for YEARS. That has stalled relations for YEARS.

It's not a turf war when the state awards the Catholic church your Cathedral and all the orthodox are told to convert or get lost.

You have such a lack of understanding of the Former Soviet Union issues it's not even funny.

Further today in ukraine there is a third problem. There is a split in the Orthodox church with some wanting to remain in the Russian Moscow patriarchiate and some wanting a national Ukranian orthodox church.

All three argue over church properties, and the nationalist Ukraine government has been favoring the notion of a Ukranian national church at the expense of the others. You go to church one morning and the police are there telling you the Church now belongs to someone else.

It's not *my beef*, it's the dispute that's been keeping the pope from meeting with the Patriarch of Russia Alexy II for years.