Pope Again Reaches Out to Orthodox Church

Herald Tribune ^ | June 30, 2003

[NYer]

VATICAN CITY Pope John Paul II again reached out to the Orthodox Church on Sunday, saying his efforts at reconciliation weren't just "ecclesiastic courtesy" but a sign of his profound desire to unite the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.

John Paul made the comments during his regular appearance to pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter's Square. Later Sunday, he welcomed a delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople at a traditional Mass marking the feast day of St. Peter and St. Paul.

"The exchange of delegations between Rome and Constantinople, for the respective patron feasts, goes beyond just an act of ecclesiastic courtesy," the pontiff said. "It reflects the profound and rooted intention to re-establish the full communion between East and West."

John Paul has made improving relations with the Orthodox Church a hallmark of his nearly 25-year papacy, visiting several mostly Orthodox countries and expressing regret for the wrongs committed by the Catholic Church against Orthodox Christians.

Despite his efforts at healing the 1,000-year-old schism, he hasn't yet visited Russia because of objections from the Russian Orthodox Church.

During the Mass on Sunday, 42 new archbishops received the pallium, a band of white wool decorated with black crosses that symbolizes their bond with the Vatican. Two of the archbishops received the pallium in their home parishes; the rest took part in the Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

[MarMema]

I think you are correct about the website, certainly they have motives as well, but then again they are attorneys so you would hope they would be careful.
It's just a sad, sad thing that children are being used as they are, and not just at Medjugorge.

[St.Chuck]

At least you acknowledge the shortcomings of your experience!

I read that again, and I thought, I hope the Lord recognizes my experience as shortcomings.LOL

[St.Chuck]

3.A personal experience with an overwhelming feeling of peace quite out of the blue while praying at Saint Basil's in Moscow. Is St. Basil's used for the Divine Liturgy now? When I was there, in 1971, it was a museum, and the interior was fairly dilapidated. But it has always been a goal of mine to construct some onion domes for my barn, which is very plain, aesthetically. St. Basil's is inspiring.

[MarMema]

I don't think it is used for liturgies, but it is definitely no longer dilapidated. And lots of people were praying there, in one of the churches, all of the times we were there.
Those "onion domes" are called cupolas.

[malakhi]

If it were not for the protection of the Church for 1500 years, there would be no Jewish people today.

HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH HA HAH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Snort ... cough ...)

Yeah, right.

[Ex-Wretch]

Herm: If it were not for the protection of the Church for 1500 years, there would be no Jewish people today.

GWB: You kiss your mother with that mouth?

LOL!(great line, GWB). Sadly though, the answer is yes. Don't forget who his "mother" is. And, it's not her mouth or cheek that he bows down and kisses.

[George W. Bush]

LOL!(great line, GWB). Sadly though, the answer is yes. Don't forget who his "mother" is.

I thought his answer was worth reading. We should be aware of the kind of fantasy world most of them live in and what Rome's current propaganda line is, i.e. both the internal and the external propaganda line.

[TexConfederate1861]

I love the the Church of St. Michaels in the Kremlin...Last I heard it is being used again by the Moscow Patriarchate....

[MarMema]

Here is a church we visited while in Rostov-on-Don in 1997. My husband is still talking about it occasionally,but neither one of us remembers the name of it.

A woman we stayed with in Rostov stands out as the most influential in leading us to the Orthodox faith. So much so that I wished for years we could let her know we had converted.

Last November we were honored to be invited to a dinner at the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC for adoptive families. Frank Foundation had an anniversary celebration and honored 3 families for their adoptions. For some reason we were one of them. Anyway, at the dinner we ended up seated with the facilitator of our adoption in Rostov-on-Don and I finally got to ask her to tell Irina, the woman I spoke of, that we had converted.

And btw, if you go to the link above and click on "programs", the boy looking out from under yellow flowers is our son, Sergey, from 1997.

[MarMema]

You should show that pic of Sergey to Victor. I bet he would get a kick out of it. :-)

[malakhi]

placemarker

[katnip]

Your Sergey's smile is infectious.

Whatever happened to the brochure they had with the 3 children in it? They were much younger then but it was a beautiful picture also.

They are all beautiful and now you have me off looking at adoption brochures and wondering again if it it is something I could do. I'd better hurry, I'm getting old
quick. It's interesting that an adoptive fathers age is of no consequence, only the mothers.

I'll show Victor the picture when I get home but I warn you, he will want to start IM'ing you guys.

[MarMema]

Tell him Sergey will be gone for the next few weeks, because after this week is his actual camp week. But after that I think the boys should stay in touch. They were like, what? instant twins? when we were there.
I hope in the next few years you will send Vic out for a week or so. We'll show him the state.
Sergey has a new bunkbed now with room on the bottom for Vic even.

Or, maybe next year, if you can bear it, you can send Vic out to go to this camp with Sergey. That would be a blast for them both I bet.
Anyway they should really stay in touch. I think it was a very lasting friendship between them that began last fall. Couple of major goofs. :-)

[MarMema]

They seem to still be using the brochure. They were handing it out at the hotel, we noticed. If you call them they will send you one of your very own. :-)

[MarMema]

Oct-97

[FormerLib]

Look, it still doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

It goes like this. The Serbs saw themselves as trapped between the National Socialists (represented by the Nazis and Stepinac's chosen Croatians and the Bosnian SS) and the International Socialists (Stalin and Tito). The only people who seemed to be supporting the Serbs in any way were the Americans.

However, political necessity, Churchill and Stalin reached an agreement, meant the Serbs were left with no help. They didn't blame the US for this.

They just hoped and prayed.

Then Tito fell but his lackeys remained in power until the old enemies arose again, the Fascist cronies in Croatian and Bosnia, and again attacked the Serbs.

They expected little help from the European Imperialists, but they had hope that America would help them.

Unfortunately for the Serbs and the Americans, the US was ruled by a pathetic hypocrite who blew whichever way the wind blew and he turned against the Serbs and led in their betrayal and murder.

But the Serbs knew that Clinton would pass away as ashes and the truth would prevail and America would be their ally once again.

Is it making any sense yet?

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

It goes like this. The Serbs saw themselves as trapped between the National Socialists (represented by the Nazis and Stepinac's chosen Croatians and the Bosnian SS) and the International Socialists (Stalin and Tito). The only people who seemed to be supporting the Serbs in any way were the Americans. However, political necessity, Churchill and Stalin reached an agreement, meant the Serbs were left with no help. They didn't blame the US for this. They just hoped and prayed. Then Tito fell but his lackeys remained in power until the old enemies arose again, the Fascist cronies in Croatian and Bosnia, and again attacked the Serbs. They expected little help from the European Imperialists, but they had hope that America would help them. Unfortunately for the Serbs and the Americans, the US was ruled by a pathetic hypocrite who blew whichever way the wind blew and he turned against the Serbs and led in their betrayal and murder. But the Serbs knew that Clinton would pass away as ashes and the truth would prevail and America would be their ally once again. Is it making any sense yet?

It's making sense, but permit me my Revisionism.

• First, the nit-picks -- when you say "International Socialists (Stalin and Tito)", I say ComIntern -- i.e., the (Stalinist-dominated) Communist International Conspiracy (without any apologia intended for Trotsky, who might have been even worse except for his assassination by the Stalinists). The Actual and Factual infiltration of which was legitimately opposed by McCarthy. (As I said, since I rather expect we will reach agreement on this point, it is a "nit-pick" of History on my part)

• But ignoring my pedantics and getting along to the meat of Revisionism, when you say "Churchill and Stalin reached an agreement, meant the Serbs were left with no help", I say that a decrepit and dying US President, a near-Socialist who had already served far too many terms despite his crippling ailments, essentially sold out Eastern Europe at Yalta (at which "Allied Conference", every one of his private rooms was bugged by the NKVD).

You may say that it was "Fate" that Serbia should be consigned to Tito's Socialism for 50 years, but I say this was a Western Political Decision to sell Mikhailovich's Royalists down the river in favor of Russian Communism.

You may say that it was "Necessary" that Serbia should be consigned to Tito's Socialism for 50 years, but I say that it was not Right.

Fiat Justitia.
Ruat Caelum.

In terms of World War II, Serbia was asked for much, provided with little, sold down the river, and then hung out to dry.

The Serbian love for America remains a matter of forgiving our every weakness, no matter how damning -- and praising our every virtue, no matter how ephemeral.

As I said: a Serb would defend his family against any Home-Invader, no regrets and no remorse -- Unless it was an American. We drop bombs on their children, and they say Prayers for ours.

It's still amazing to me.

[FormerLib]

I'd say you have a pretty accurate grasp of the history of the area.

What little help Mikhailovich's men got came from the US. For some reason, the Serbs seem to remember that over Roosevelt or Clinton's betrayal.

We rent out our church hall to a Roman Catholic organization on a regular basis. One of their members recently traveled to Serbia and visited the hometown of our priest. He was amazed at the warm reception he received. They showered him with many gifts to "take home to America."

Yes, it puzzles me too.

[George W. Bush]

Unfortunately for the Serbs and the Americans, the US was ruled by a pathetic hypocrite who blew whichever way the wind blew and he turned against the Serbs and led in their betrayal and murder.

Clinton was allied with his Third Way socialist friends in Europe like Blair, the French, the Gernams. He attacked the Serbs as a favor to them. This is part of the reason he is still held in such esteem in Europe. He used the American military to accomplish that which the feeble Euro militaries could not do themselves.

[MarMema]

Did you know we did a pan-orthodox collection for the Serbs just after the bombing in our area? A woman from one of the Greek churches and I coordinated the collection.

Some churches had a parish function and made shoeboxes for the refugees. Others made them as a teen night activity. The rocor church simply collected and I will never forget the tables piled to the ceiling and the 4 trips with a huge van that we had to make to get it all out of their hall. The Russians here donated a small fortune in new coats, blankets, and clothing for children.

Anyway I was a liason with Fr. Aleksandr Vlajkovic at Saint Sava in Wakefield, Ma. He and I emailed back and forth and after several trips to Serbia he told me what the Serbs said about us then. He said they asked him continually how the Americans felt about them now. Living in tents, they never once expressed hatred or anger at us. It did amaze me at the time.

The huge container we helped to fill, the second one, had many cards from Americans in it. It cost over a grand in shipping to send the stuff from Seattle, and some people, one priest here for instance, made donations, often of several hundred dollars. I personally put a paper icon ( Fr. Dane gave me a stack of them to use) on each box, and liberally put them in pockets of coats, etc.

I don't think they can dislike America because we also helped them a great deal - it seems another huge supporter of the container donations was a Lutheran church close to Saint Sava in Wakefield, for instance.

I think it has been much harder on the Serbs living *here*. I remember a man at our church - you recall we were attending a Serbian church then - coming back from Belgrade and standing up after liturgy to talk to us. He said he saw people digging through trashcans for food in Belgrade. At any rate, not being Serb at all, it was very painful for me to hear stories like these, and to see our priest and his wife on tv being interviewed - with Popadija crying and crying. (My oldest daughter was very upset to see her kuma on tv crying.)

There is an interview on the St. Sava site with comments from some of the parishioners. I think they and people at the church we were attending then had and still have serious difficulties with the bombing. Poor Fr. Aleksandr had to go there and personally witness the tent camps. It must be forever scorched on his memory. If you ever have the chance to meet him sometime, please give him my love.