Free Republic

MOSCOW, April 4. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Romanov) - It seems the only place the pope wanted but could not visit was Moscow. His patience was boundless, but he did not live long enough to see changes in the Russian Orthodox Church. He, however, was open to the whole world, including Russians. It turned out that establishing contacts with the secular authorities of the new Russia was much easier than with the hierarchs of the Russian Church. The pontiff received Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin, the latter of whom has sent the Vatican an unusual letter of condolences. More than...

As the world mourned the death of Pope John Paul II, hundreds of people came to the spiritual home of Catholicism in Moscow -- a place he could never visit -- to pay their respects. Hundreds of Catholics and non-Catholics alike packed into the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Malaya Gruzinskaya for a special Mass on Sunday morning. Russian religious leaders, politicians and cultural figures also paid tribute to the Roman Catholic leader whose persistent desire to visit Russia was blocked by the Russian Orthodox Church.