Current Developments the DISTURBED RELATIONS

Current Developments

THE DISTURBED RELATIONS BETWEEN THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

WIL VAN DEN BERCKEN*

This survey of recent developments in the Orthodox Church in Russia is wholly devoted to the problematic relationship between the Russian Ortho- dox and the Roman Catholic Church. First I will analyse the ecumenical declaration of the Russian Orthodox Council of Bishops of 2000 with regard to the Roman Catholic Church. Then I will discuss non-theological factors in the relation between Moscow and Rome. Finally I will comment on the latest problems between Orthodoxy and Catholicism in Russia and the Ukraine, which has further disturbed the relations between the two churches. Although the ecumenical declaration was issued before the recent problems between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church, it is an interesting indica- tor for the Russian Orthodox view of the Roman Catholic Church as a partner in the ecumenical dialogue.

DECLARATION ON ECUMENISM

The document Basic Principles of the Attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church toward the Other Christian Confessions provides a theological and ecclesiological argumentation about ecumenism.1 Although the content of this document was less of a surprise than that of the other document of the Russian

* Dr. Wil van den Bercken is lecturer at the Institute of Missiological and Ecumenical Research at Utrecht University and professor of Slavonic Christianity at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. 1 Osnovnye printsipy otnosheniya Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi k inoslaviyu on http:/www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/s2000r13/htm and in Yubileinyi arkhiereiskii sobor Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi: materialy (Moscow, 2000), pp. 305-328. English text without appendix on http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/s2000e13.htm. 228 WIL VAN DEN BERCKEN

Council of Bishops, Bases of the Social Conception of the Russian Orthodox Church, it is important as the first authoritative ecumenical statement of the Russian Orthodox Church. The document consists of a general part and a more elaborate supplement with concrete information on the various partner churches in the ecumenical dialogue. The text begins with a clear theological definition of the Ortho- dox Church as ‘the true Church of Christ', of which Christ Himself said, ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against her', and which is ‘the One, Holy, Catholic (Sobornaya [Kafolicheskaya]) and Apostolic Church'. Her unity lies in the fact that she ‘has one head, the Lord Jesus Christ'. Her truth lies in the guarantee that the Holy Spirit leads her, as a result of which she ‘cannot transgress or even err'. That is a clear description, in which Orthodoxy remains true to itself. It might just as well be used by the Roman Catholic Church. The references to the Church in the first section of the document deserve closer analysis. The most important term is ‘catholic', rendered in Russian by both kafolicheskii (as distinct from katolicheskii, which is used for Roman Catholic) and sobornyi, which is the Old Slavonic translation of the Greek term in the Creed. In the document the Slavonic term is only used in the Creed-formula (twice), for the rest kafolicheskii always occurs (six times in section 1). In such a way the document underlines the universal character of the Orthodox Church. The term that occurs most frequently (eleven times) is ‘Orthodox' or ‘Ortho- doxy'. Thus the universal aspect is implicitly identified with Orthodoxy. The starting point of the document is not a divided Church of Christ of which the Orthodox is a part, but an identification of the one Church with the Ortho- dox, from which the other churches have broken away. That applies to the Roman as well as the Assyrian, Coptic, Armenian, Syro-Jacobite, Ethiopian, and Malabar churches. The Roman church is geographically defined as a part of ‘Western Chris- tianity', in which subsequently the reformational secessions took place. The Orthodox Church is not equated with the geographical designation ‘Eastern Church' for Orthodoxy is ‘not a national or cultural attribute of the Eastern Church'. This is obviously a correct observation, but implicitly limits the Roman Catholic Church geographically. And that is incorrect, because Roman Catholicism is not an attribute of a ‘Western' Church. DISTURBED RELATIONS 229

It is important to note that the document does not state that the Church is divided but that ‘the Christians' are divided. The scandal of that fact is fully recognised: it is a ‘historical tragedy, a source of scandal, an open and bleed- ing wound on the Body of Christ'. Thus the document recognises the reality of division, but it is a division outside of the Orthodox Church, as it were. The phrasing used to denote a nevertheless common element between the Orthodox Church and the other Christians is remarkable: ‘Communities which have fallen away from Orthodoxy have never been viewed as fully deprived of the grace of God'. This is a negative way of putting it. The same could have been said in positive terms, such as ‘The non-Orthodox communities are connected with the Orthodox Church through the grace of God'. It is a matter of wording! In spite of the theological correctness of the view that the Church as insti- tuted by Christ is holy, the document lacks a recognition that the leaders of the Church are not necessarily so and that they are in part responsible for the historical process of the disintegration of Christian unity. Nor is this recognition present in the very abstract observation that ‘one should not yield to the temptation to idealize the past'. And the observation that the church fathers ‘give an example of spiritual self-criticism' is not followed by any actual self-criticism. The blame for the schisms is put automatically on the non-Orthodox churches. After the description of the true nature of the church it is said in the second section that the Orthodox Church must strive for the restoration of ‘the unity of the Christians', not of the unity of the Church. That means a return of the other Christians to the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, which is presented as identical with the Orthodox Church. This is a categorically theological position, which the Roman Catholic Church in her turn also held but nuanced in the Second Vatican Council. Although this sense of exclusiveness appears dogmatic to modern ecu- menists, the thesis that it is the task of the Orthodox Church to strive for unity is, on the contrary, progressive in the Russian context, for in nationalist circles of the Russian Orthodox Church striving for ecumenism is rejected as ‘heresy'. The document says the opposite: the task is ‘of the high- est priority' and not taking part in it ‘is a sin against God’s commandment of unity'. 230 WIL VAN DEN BERCKEN

If unity can only be realised in a return to the Orthodox Church, the document is consistent in rejecting all other ‘models' of unity. They are the fol- lowing: 1. The assumption that ‘Christian unity exists across denominational barri- ers and that the disunity of the churches belongs exclusively to the imper- fect level of human relations […] This model repeats the teaching on ‘the invisible Church’ which appeared during the Reformation'. 2. The model which is related to the previous one, ‘the so-called “branch theory'' which regards it as normal that Christianity exists in particular branches'. 3. Trying to heal the divisions by ‘compromises between denominations'. 4. Recognising the ‘equality of the denominations'. 5. The idea that in spite of all the differences there is ‘sufficient unity in “what is most important”'. Or the argument that differences can be reduced to non-theological factors of social and cultural nature. 6. The assumption that unity can be realised ‘through common Christian service to the world'. 7. Limiting unity in faith to a narrow set of necessary truths and allowing beyond that ‘freedom in what is doubtful'.

All the above are relativist church concepts. The denominations are not equal and ‘those who have fallen away from the Church' can only be re- united ‘through repentance, conversion and renewal'. True unity is a ‘communion in Sacraments', which is not, however, ‘intercommunion'. All in all, therefore, there is little common ground between the Ortho- dox and the other Christians, except a pursuit of unity. The non-Ortho- dox churches and denominations are denoted in the document by the term inoslavie (‘non-Orthodoxy') or inoslavnyi mir (‘non-Orthodox world'). The title of the document translates inoslavie as ‘other Christian confessions'. Section 3 speaks of ‘different Christian churches and confessions' without being specific about what communities constitute ‘churches' and which do not. After a quotation from the Third Preconciliar Panorthodox Conference of 1986 the document turns to the Russian participation in ecumenism and subsequently speaks of ‘Russian Orthodox Church' instead of ‘Ortho- dox Church'. It does so after once again stating expressly that Ortho- DISTURBED RELATIONS 231 dox Christians should ‘clearly realise' that their religion has ‘a global and universal (vselenskii, universal’nyi) character'. In section 4, which deals with the importance of the bilateral dialogue with non-Orthodox Christians, only Anglicans and Old Catholics are in passing referred to by name. For the rest it remains general. Nor does it indicate who the ‘best representatives' of non-Orthodox theology are, with their ‘sincere and profound interest in studying patristic heritage'. Do the composers of the document have in mind here such Catholic theologians as Congar and De Lubac? The document arouses equal curiosity by its general statement on the use of exchanges with ‘the major centres of non-Orthodox theological schol- arship'. Besides the bilateral dialogue there is the participation of the Russian Ortho- dox Church in inter-Christian organisations. Of course this first of all means the World Council of Churches, even though it is not mentioned (that does not happen until the Appendix). Here the document clearly expresses the con- ditions on the basis of which the Russian church can participate: she must propagate her ecclesiological consciousness that she is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Besides the theological dialogue, the Russian Ortho- dox Church can maintain ‘co-operation' and ‘working relations' with various Christian denominations and international Christian organisations. The last two sections deal with internal Russian problems in the field of ecumenism. Here the explosive term ‘canonical territory' turns up, which appears to coincide largely with the former territory of the USSR, namely ‘CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] and Baltic States'. Here the acci- dental geographical and political reality of the former Soviet Union is eccle- siastically consolidated to the ‘canonical territory' of the Moscow Patriar- chate. In social matters the Russian Orthodox Church does co-operate in her territory with already existing denominations, which are referred to by the strange phrase ‘other traditional confessions'. This means a restriction of the activities of religious communities which are not considered ‘traditional'. Their appearance on Russian territory is regarded as proselytism and as a dis- turbance of ‘social harmony' in the canonical territory. The traditional confessions may display missionary activity and conduct religious education without proselytism. The latter is described as ‘stealing' the faithful, especially with the aid of material benefits. This in itself is not an unreasonable thesis, except of course that it is impossible to define what the 232 WIL VAN DEN BERCKEN

‘stealing' of faithful is and that every form of charitable aid may be viewed as ‘temptation'. Although it does not say what the traditional confessions are, the Catholic Church is apparently not one of them, for she is not entitled to missionary activity. The document is less ambivalent in its statement against the sects ‘which reject fundamental Christian doctrines'. Although their missionary activity is perhaps too quickly characterised as ‘destructive', this is an understandable statement in view of recent experiences with them in Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church therefore does not grant them the rights which she gives to other Christian confessions. The final section touches upon an important issue: the disagreement within the Russian Orthodox Church about the principle of ecumenism. The document condemns the ‘extremist groups' in her own ranks that view any form of ecumenism as a ‘betrayal' of Orthodoxy. It refers to the Panorthodox meeting in Thessaloniki in 1998, where the Orthodox churches affirmed on principle their ‘participation in the Ecumenical movement' as ‘witnessing the Truth before the non-Orthodox world'. On the other hand too much ecumenical enthusiasm such as ‘entering into canonically inadmissible sacramental communion with non-Orthodox communities' is condemned. The final section contains an observation that is meant positively towards ecumenism, but which is a curious way of putting things all the same: ‘Divided Christians have shown a desire to achieve unity in the Church of Christ' and ‘The Russian Orthodox Church has responded to this desire with a readiness to conduct a dialogue…'. This sentence indicates once again that the pursuit of unity comes from people who are now outside that unity and that the Russian church, belonging to the true and one church, is ready to oblige them. So much for the theoretical part of the statement of the Russian bishops. On many items it has remained vague. Separate churches and organisations are mentioned in an Appendix: the non-Chalcedonian, the Roman Catholic, the Anglican and the Old Catholic churches. The smallest number of words is devoted to the Roman Catholic Church (114). This is remarkable, not only because this church, being the largest in the world, might merit more attention than the minute Old Catholic Church, but also because a dialogue was conducted with the Roman Catholic Church in the sixties and the sev- enties, about which nothing is said. In the case of other churches, meetings DISTURBED RELATIONS 233 are referred to or topics of discussion mentioned, and the importance of the dialogue with the Anglicans is emphasised in spite of the problem of the women priests, and the Panorthodox dialogue with the Old Catholics is lib- erally quoted. Thematically and terminologically the Roman Catholic Church is not treated equally with the other churches. This applies even more in comparison with the World Council of Churches, where the ecumenical issues with the Protestant Churches and communities are treated very elab- orately and with commitment. The only conclusion possible about the Appen- dix, where the document becomes specific, is that it deals with the Roman Catholic Church in a very constrained way.

ASSESSMENT

Some additional evaluative remarks may be made with regard to the document in its entirety and the treatment of the Roman Catholic Church in particular. A general shortcoming of the document – and this also applies to the document on Social Doctrine – is that it does not seek contact with modern theology, not even within Orthodox circles. Only church fathers are quoted, no twentieth-century theologians such as George Florovsky, Sergei Bul- gakov, Kallistos Ware, John Zizioulas, Dumitru Staniloae, Olivier Clément, let alone pro-Orthodox Catholic authors. Would not an ecumenical document have been eminently suited for this? The document would not only have gained in ecumenical spirit, but also in historical awareness. By using only theologians from the first centuries the document acts as if theology has stood still. Here lies a difference between the Russian document and the ecclesiological declarations of the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican II. Catholic documents, even when they are conservative in content, have an intellectual openness toward modern developments and other Christian confessions. For the rest the Roman Catholic Church's ecclesiological position matches that of the Orthodox Church: she too begins from the idea that she is the One and Holy Church. She has once again expressed that in the document Domi- nus Jesus, which appeared almost simultaneously (September 5, 2000) with the Russian declaration. Although this document has drawn much criticism, it is the Orthodox Church especially that could subscribe to its basic notions 234 WIL VAN DEN BERCKEN if she substituted the word kafolicheskaya for katolicheskaya.2 In the interre- ligious dialogue it appears that the Roman Catholic Church and the Ortho- dox Church share the same principal position in the midst of all religious vague- ness, relativism and syncretism. In inter-Christian dialogue, too, the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church are closest to each other: sacraments, apostolicity, and tradition are the common basis of the two churches. In the Russian bishops' document, however, there is no emphasis or elaboration on this theological and spiritual common ground. The Russian Church has not used her first official ecumenical declaration to emphasise the positive aspect of her agreements with the Catholic Church, but on the contrary has shown a careful and cautious aloofness from her. Not only is no remark made on theological affinity, but typographically (as far as the number of words is concerned), too, the Roman Church is reduced to a fringe phenomenon. This is hardly a balanced theological method: bringing everything together under inoslavie and ignoring the vast differences in it. Another criticism of the document concerns the absence of an awareness of co-responsibility for the situation of division that has developed in the Christian world. The Church as a divine institution may be infallible (nepogreshimyi), the local churches and their leaders (both Roman Catholic and Orthodox) are not: popes and patriarchs, bishops and metropolitans were often driven by political motives and human passions. In Orthodox- Catholic contacts this has been acknowledged by the latest patriarchs of Con- stantinople and by the popes: they have expressed their common responsibility for the historical situation. The Russian church is not yet ready for such historical insight and quality of Christian leadership. The atmosphere of the Russian document on ecumenism is cold and aloof. There is no urge to continue the dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church ‘notwithstanding the difficulties' (as in the case of other churches), there is no expression of a strong hope for an early unity, no utterance of concilia- tory words. The Russian Orthodox Church could have done all that and at the same time fully maintained her theological correctness. What counts is the tone, the style, the spirit.

2 Aleksandr Kyrlezhev in Russkaya Mysl’, Oct. 12, 2000. DISTURBED RELATIONS 235

NON-THEOLOGICAL CAUSES: THE NATIONAL PARADIGM

The chill in the relations between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches that is evident from the Russian document, must be seen of course in the context of developments in the nineties: the restoration of the Greek- Catholic Church in Ukraine and the appointment of ‘apostolic administra- tors' in Russia. In 2002 the issue has also arisen of the rather provocative upgrad- ing of these apostolic administrations to formal Roman Catholic dioceses. But apart from these post-Soviet events, there is a much older element that encumbers the relations between ‘Moscow' and ‘Rome': the ideological element of the national paradigm. This element has been shaped by the historical development of Russia and structurally strengthened by the national organ- isational form of the Orthodox Church. Since the Russian Orthodox Church sees her role as indissolubly linked with the development of her own nation and statehood, in practice (not in theory) she loses sight of the transnational aspect of the church, even organisationally. Non-theological notions such as ‘canonical territory' and ‘foreign' or ‘non-traditional' churches arise from the perception of the church as a national entity. I shall try to clarify this aspect. For the Russian Church the problem of ecumenism with regard to Roman Catholicism lies much more in the nation-church paradigm than in theological differences. The Russian religious mentality is obsessed with the historical antithesis East-West, Russia-Catholicism, Moscow-Rome. Uniatism is one of those historical factors, but even without that issue there are historical sores between Orthodox Russia and the Catholic ‘West', from Alexander Nevsky’s struggle with the German Order to the Polish conquest of Moscow in the seventeenth century and the anti-Orthodox stand of Rome in the nineteenth- century Balkan wars (about which Aleksei Khomyakov wrote). These old matters continue to play a part in the contemporary religious and historical quest for a national identity, judging by the commemorations of the victory of Aleksandr Nevsky, the invocation of Patriarch Ermogen (who led the resis- tance against the Catholic Poles) and the reactions of the Russian church to the wars in the former Yugoslavia.3

3 For Aleksandr Nevsky see e.g. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/archiv/ledovbitva.htm; for Patri- arch Yermogen, Service Orthodoxe de Presse, April 2002, p. 14. In the nineties many ideological articles were written in the religious-nationalist press about the war against Serbia and an alleged conspiracy of the Vatican and NATO. 236 WIL VAN DEN BERCKEN

An ideological use of history is also evident in the annual commemoration of Cyril and Methodius. These saints are presented not only as the founders of the Slavonic script but also as patron saints of the Slavonic unity between Russians, Ukrainians and Byelorussians, as protosaints of Russia, if you will. The Russian Church has nationalised these saints. They have been made anti- Catholic, although they went to Rome to seek permission for their Slavonic translations, which they were granted by Pope John VIII (and which was later withdrawn in a fatal decision by his narrow-minded successors). Would it not be more in line with these great missionaries, who accepted Rome as the administrative centre of the church but rejected Latin cultural domi- nance, who came from the East and were buried in the West, who are the last saints of the undivided church, to celebrate their church feast jointly and turn it into a day of prayer for the restoration of the unity that existed during their lifetime? Is it not more in line with them to proclaim them ‘bridge between East and West' and ‘patron saints of Europe' (as John Paul II did in 1986) than to turn them anachronistically into the spiritual ancestors of an ethnic-Slavonic church concept?4 Is it not better to use history to break down ancient prejudices than to affirm them? Apart from the use of the notion ‘Slavonic', which cannot have a place in the church lexicon, the national paradigm also reveals itself in another way. That is in the use of a group of phrases that have come to play a major role in Russian religious spirituality. Phrases such as ‘motherland', ‘fatherland' and ‘Russian people' are omnipresent in church history books and maga- zines, in addresses by the Patriarch and sermons of priests. ‘Love of the Father/Motherland' is preached as a primary Christian virtue, backed up by quotations from the New Testament (the locus classicus being John 15,13 or 1 John 4,20, where there is no mention of fatherland). The concept of patri- otism does not exist at all in the New Testament, but the church in Russia is said to have a ‘patriotic devotion, patriotic mission, patriotic service'. ‘Loy- alty to Orthodoxy and love of the fatherland' (vernost’ pravoslaviyu i lyubov’ k rodine) are frequently bracketed together, as if they were inseparable matters.

4 In Minsk there is in fact co-operation between Orthodox and Catholics as part of the commemorations of Cyril and Methodius. DISTURBED RELATIONS 237

As a result of the combination of church and fatherland, Orthodoxy and culture, the ecclesiology is narrowed, – not theologically but psychologically, in the minds of the faithful. The same applies to the national cult of saints: merits for the fatherland are always praised in hagiographies. In the case of St Sergii of Radonezh his contribution to ‘the gathering of the Russian land' is invariably mentioned. And the recent canonisation of Tsar Nicholas II also fits into this national-religious pattern. Another consequence of the close ties between church and national culture is the exclusive illustration of the Christian message with quotations from national writers, theologians and saints. In official church publications, such as documents of bishops’ councils, synods or messages from the Patriarch, writers or thinkers from outside Russia are never quoted to underline a universal Christian theme (whereas in papal encyclicals Russian thinkers such as Dos- toevsky, Solovyov or Pavel Florensky are mentioned). The Russian Church cultivates ‘spiritual autarchy', a national-religious spirituality. Although the national paradigm is not used as a theological concept – in the document on ecumenism, too, the universal character of the church is maintained on principle, as we have seen – it is used in the recently formulated social doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church, where the theme of statehood (gosudarstvennost’) is added to the theme of nationhood (narod- nost’). In all these cases it is a religious nationalism which has a formative influ- ence on people’s religious psychological way of thinking. With this psychological attitude it is difficult not only for the Russian believer to regard Christianity primarily as a transnational religion, but also for the leadership of the church to accept an active presence of other Christians in her canonical territory. This is automatically viewed as com- petition, an infringement of its national rights. That brings us to the notion that plays such an important role in the present discussion between the Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church: canonical territory.

RIGHT AND WRONG OF THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE

From the point of view of identification of Orthodox church and nation the creation of Roman Catholic dioceses in Russia is seen as an attack on the territory of the Moscow Patriarchate. It is unacceptable if ‘our country becomes 238 WIL VAN DEN BERCKEN a province of the Vatican', Patriarch Aleksii reacted in an interview.5 In this view the political principle of national independence and territorial integrity is applied to the churches. In the Izvestiya interview Patriarch Aleksii said that the concept ‘canonical territory' does not have dogmatic but church historical meaning. It is only used to denote traditionally Orthodox or Catholic countries. Therefore it only reflects the recognition of a historical reality. This patriarchal argument is not convincing: equally historically real is the sepa- ration of the churches, and this does not run along country borders, but across the whole of Christendom. Just like traditionally Catholic countries such as Italy and Spain and Protestant Landeskirchen in Germany have learned to live with other churches within the territory, Orthodox countries will also have to resign themselves to religious pluriformity. What is more important, from a theological point of view, is that it is impossible to speak of religious ‘countries' or ‘nations'. Religion is a person’s indi- vidual choice and not a cultural mark that one is born with as a citizen of a particular country. That is why Patriarch Aleksii’s argument that many Rus- sians belong to Orthodoxy on the basis of ‘cultural self-identification' is not a convincing argument. That has nothing to do with religiosity and the Gospel. Most French will feel affinity with Catholicism, but that does not make France a Catholic country. In France church attendance is as low as in Russia. We find another expression that has little to do with a theological way of thinking. The phrase that the Vatican is acting according to the ‘principles of the market economy' is political imagery as well. Conversely the spiritual monopoly of the Moscow Patriarchate should then be called ‘the principle of state economy'. And in the Background Information on Catholic Proselytism among the Orthodox Population in Russia which the Department for External Church Relations published on 25 June 2002 there is more non-theological argumentation.6 The document points to the ‘statehood forming significance that Orthodoxy had for Russia', e.g. at the time of the Polish invasion of Russia in the early seventeenth century, when the Orthodox Church inspired the struggle for independence. That is of course an incontrovertible historical fact, but it is irrelevant to ecclesiology. The comparison of the present- day actions of Rome in Russia with the ‘ecclesiology of the crusades', when

5 Izvestiya, May 13, 2002. 6 http://www.russian-orthodox-church.org.ru/ne207011.htm DISTURBED RELATIONS 239 a Catholic hierarchy was established in the East as well, is also hardly balanced. Straight from a national interpretative framework is the quotation of the Slavophile romantic stereotype that ‘the Russian soul is remarkable for its credulity and openness to the Word of God' and that ‘the West, the territory of the historical pastoral responsibility of the Roman Catholic Church, …is growing ever more secular and atheistic'. The remark that Catholicism in Russia is actually ‘the ethnic religion' of Polish and German descendants is a typically Russian projection. The suggestion that the Catholic clergy's emphasis on the ‘universality' (quotation marks in the original) of Catholi- cism is misleading ‘the local population' is also unhelpful. Hence what the document blames the Roman Catholic side for is that with the creation of dioceses ‘the Catholic Church in Russia has ceased to be a pastoral structure for ethnic minorities'. The Background Information is only convincing in showing the missionary activities of seventeen Catholic monastic orders and congregations. It is true that these priests and nuns would also have enough work in the West and could easily be housed in the monasteries and convents there, which are quickly becoming uninhabited. They are also all foreigners (Poles, Slovaks, Italians, Mexicans).7 While recognising the right of Catholic orders and congregations in Rus- sia to exist and appreciating their charitable and educational work, some crit- ical remarks may indeed be made with regard to the activity of the Roman Catholic Church in Russia. Because of its one-sided actions the Vatican is as much to blame for the tense situation as the Moscow Patriarchate for its overreaction. The appointment of Roman Catholic bishops in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Saratov and Irkutsk is an insult to the Orthodox Church. It took place without consulting with the Russian Church, shortly after a Russian Orthodox delegation had met the Pope on the occasion of the world day of prayer at Assisi (Jan. 25, 2002), and shortly before a planned visit of

7 A curious effect when reading the names of these Western congregations in the Russian context is that they show the often bizarre devotional character on which they were founded: Sons of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin, Sisters of the Holy Family, Handmaidens of the Holy Spirit, Handmaidens of Jesus in the Eucharist, Poor Servants of the Divine Providence. 240 WIL VAN DEN BERCKEN

Cardinal Kasper to Moscow. Moscow, not totally incomprehensibly, cancelled this visit. The appointment also took place a few days after a meeting between Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the head of the Russian Catholics, and Metropolitan Kirill. The Catholic Church did not deem it necessary to inform the Russian side of the impending step. Metropolitan Kirill is not wrong when he remarks that this secretive mode of operation of the Roman Catholic Church in dealing with her Orthodox partner in dialogue ‘means to profane the dialogue itself'.8 The accentuation of a ‘Latin' presence fails to work with the idea that the Catholic Church sees the Orthodox Church as a ‘sister church'. There was no objective need to upgrade the Apostolic Administration in Russia to formal dioceses, and one must ask if such a parallel church organisation fits at all within the concept of sister churches, i.e. churches that recognise each other’s sacramental character and apostolic succession. If the Roman Church starts competing with the Orthodox, she contradicts her qualification of that church expressed at Vatican II. Paradoxically enough, the obvious Vatican argument that the Moscow Patri- archate also has dioceses in Western Europe is hardly convincing: the fact that the various autocephalous Orthodox Churches have dioceses in Western countries, and frequently several in one country, is more harmful to Orthodoxy than it is to Catholicism. It proves that the national or ethnic principle is para- mount for the church structure in Orthodoxy, which is in contradiction with the essence of its ecclesiology. How can the Orthodox Churches be expected to accept the Catholic Church as equal in their own canonical territory if they themselves cannot even achieve unity in the diaspora?9 The disruption of the relations between Moscow and Rome, however, dates back further, viz. from 1989, when the Greek-Catholic Church was re-founded in West Ukraine. Unlike the Latin dioceses, this redressed an historical injustice, i.e. the dissolution in 1946 of an age-old church by the commu- nist regime and the appropriation of her church buildings to the Moscow

8 In a letter to Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz. See http://www.russian-orthodox- church.org.ru/ne207012.htm. 9 However, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk sees proof in the ethnic names of the Russ- ian dioceses in Western Europe that they are not meant for proselytism among the native population. Moskovskii tserkovnyi vestnik no 4, 2002, p. 4. DISTURBED RELATIONS 241

Patriarchate by that same regime. In this matter the Moscow Patriarchate has shown little historical sensitiviy by being unwilling to acknowledge the 1946 injustice as such. And consequently Metropolitan Volodymyr of Kiev’s refusal to meet the Pope during his visit to Ukraine in June 2001 was a diplomatic insult and an act of narrow-mindedness. Here if anywhere the two churches could have closed the long period in which they played into the hands of political trends. In her turn the Catholic, Greek as well as Roman, Church in Ukraine does not always act in a spirit of reconciliation: the Greek-Catholic Church provoca- tively plans to move the see of her Major Archbishop from Lviv to Kiev, for which there is no historical basis or pastoral need, and hopes to upgrade the title of Major Archbishop to Patriarch, and to create the Donetsk-Kharkiv exar- chate. The Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine, too, wants to expand by creating dioceses in Kharkiv and Odessa.10 Moreover, strengthening its Latin as well as its Greek structures is a curiously dualist policy on the part of the Vatican. How can the Catholic Church be expected to apply the principle of ‘one bishop one city' in the relations with her Orthodox sister church if she appoints both Latin and Uniate bishops side by side? There appear to be contradictions in the policy of the Vatican towards the Orthodox churches in Russia and Ukraine, as if two views are struggling for preference: On the one hand there are the principles, formulated in 1992, of pursuing good contacts with the local Orthodox church and the avoidance of parallel structures of evangelisation, on the other hand ten years later there is the creation of six Latin dioceses.11 On the one hand they sincerely pur- sue the dialogue with the Orthodox Church which has been regarded as a sister church since the Second Vatican Council, on the other hand that term notably disappears in Dominus Jesus. On the one hand there is a rejection of Uniatism as a means towards unity in the Declaration of Balamand, on the other hand there is further consolidation of Uniatism. In some respects the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate is right in its criticism of the church politics of Rome. That criticism, however, has often

10 See the internet magazine Religiya i obshchestvo, no 19 (Kiev) and Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhii 2002, no 8, p. 18. 11 Obshchie printsipy i prakticheskie normy koordinatsii evangelizatorskoi deyatel’nosti i eku- menicheskie obyazatel’stva Katolicheskoi Tserkvi v Rossii i drugikh stranakh SNG (1992), Logos: Dialog Vostok-Zapad, 50 (1995), pp. 72-80. 242 WIL VAN DEN BERCKEN been expressed out of improper, ideological arguments. The position of the Russian Orthodox Church would be much stronger if she were to base her criticism on purely ecumenical principles and were to let it be accompanied by a general pursuit of improved relations between Orthodoxy and Catholi- cism. That is, if she were to look beyond the present conflicts toward the future. Church leaders of other Orthodox countries have acted more wisely. The Patriarchs of Romania, Bulgaria and Georgia and the church leader of Greece, albeit on the initiative of the state (a normal phenomenon during the Byzan- tine and Tsarist periods of Orthodoxy anyway) have managed to look beyond their own borders and performed a historic act. And the Katholikos of Arme- nia acted in an even greater ecumenical spirit when he proposed a meeting between Orthodox leaders and John Paul II on the occasion of the seventeenth centenary of the Armenian Apostolic Church in 2001, but it was rejected by Patriarch Aleksii II of Moscow.12 A year earlier, in 2000, the then Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Diodoros, suggested such a meeting in the holy city in the Christian jubilee year, but the Patriarch of Moscow opposed this, too. Whatever Patriarch Aleksii’s motives may have been, historically speaking this was a missed opportunity. Already in 1997, during the Second European Ecumenical Assembly in Graz, the Moscow Patriarchate would not let a possible meeting take place. One cannot escape the impression of methodical refusals of contact. What is depressing in this situation between the churches is not only that the Patriarch of Moscow did not take advantage of an objective historical occasion such as the second millennium of the birth of Christ, but also that on the part of the Russian Orthodox Church no small acts of reconciliation are performed. No calls on her own parishes to pray for unity with the Catholic Church, no arranging ecumenical prayer services in the Christ Sav- iour Cathedral in Moscow, no pursuit of lifting the ignorance among her own faithful with regard to the Roman Catholic Church ('nourrir la con- naissance réciproque', as the Pope said in Bulgaria13), no condemnation of the furiously anti-Catholic utterances in extremist small newspapers and on

12 Russkaja Mysl’, Oct. 4, 2001. 13 Service Orthodoxe de Presse, Juin 2002, p. 10. DISTURBED RELATIONS 243 websites against the predtecha antikhrista, precursor of the anti-Christ, or poslanets Lyutsifera, envoy of Lucifer (with which the Patriarch of course dis- agrees). It is also a pity that the Russian church leadership does nothing to break down the idea that the Pope of Rome is a representative of the West, a notion with which a whole complex of historical and ideological stereotypes is linked in the minds of the Russian faithful. Now it is often made out or suggested that the actions of the Vatican are a continuation of the Catholic expansion which has threatened the Russian nation since 1242 and that these actions are part of a comprehensive Western strategy of globalisation versus Russia with the enlargement of NATO towards the East (an unnecessary act) as political component. The world has changed: the present Pope is no crusader from the time of Aleksandr Nevsky. Like no other church leader before him this Pope has sought a rapprochement with the Orthodox in the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Middle East. And for the first time in history there is a bishop of Rome who has admitted historical mistakes of his own church. And if ‘Rome' is historically not infallible, then ‘Moscow' is not either.