Russian religious, political leaders praise pope, avoid dispute that
blocked him from visiting
AP Worldstream
Apr 03, 2005
JIM HEINTZ
The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose resentment of Roman
Catholics’ expanding activities blocked Pope John Paul II from making
a visit here he longed for, hailed the late pontiff Sunday and said
the two churches were joined in grieving.
Other Russians offering condolences and praise of the pope included
President Vladimir Putin, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose intense books about the Soviet
labor-camp system won him the Nobel Prize.
None of them mentioned the dispute that kept John Paul from visiting
Russia _ a journey they pope had repeatedly expressed intense desire
for. The Russian Orthodox Church complains that Roman Catholics are
poaching for converts among people who would have been Orthodox had
not the officially atheist Soviet Union obstructed religious
activities.
Although state-controlled television channels on Sunday led their
newscasts with the pope’s death, including live reports from
St. Peter’s Square, they made no mention of Russia’s Catholics,
estimated to number about 600,000. Hundreds of people gathered Sunday
at Moscow’s Catholic Immaculate Conception cathedral to mourn the
pope.
“We pray with thanks for a man who did so many good things for Russia
and the whole world,” said Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz.
Russian Orthodox church head Patriarch Alexy II praised the pope’s
“strong will for Christian service and witness.”
“Together with you we grieve over the loss that has befallen the Roman
Catholic Church,” he said in a letter to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,
dean of the College of Cardinals.
Although the letter did not mention the Moscow-Vatican dispute, Alexy
said that “the upcoming new period in the life of the Roman Catholic
Church will, hopefully, help renew the relations of mutual respect and
fraternal Christian love between our churches.”
Putin issued a statement saying he had “very warm recollections of
meetings with the Pope.” He met with John Paul at the Vatican in 2003
and had indicated he favored a papal visit but would not pressure the
Russian Orthodox Church to drop its objection.
The closest John Paul ever came to visiting Russia was a televised
prayer service beamed to Moscow’s Roman Catholic cathedral from the
Vatican. Even that annoyed the Russian Orthodox Church, which many
Russians consider inseparable from their national identity.
John Paul, the first Slavic pope, saw a visit to Russia as a chance to
promote greater Christian unity, a millennium after the Great Schism
divided Christianity between eastern and western branches. He visited
several ex-Soviet republics including Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia and
Ukraine, but couldn’t melt the Moscow Patriarchate’s resistance.
Relations between the churches turned especially icy in 2002 after the
Vatican elevated its presence in Russia by establishing four
full-fledged dioceses headed by an archbishop.
John Paul work “aimed at establishing more fair international
relations, building a society based on humanism and solidarity and
strengthening moral principles … (and) gained him the respect of
hundreds of millions of people of various religions and
nationalities,” Putin said.
That assessment was echoed by Gorbachev, who was Soviet leader when
European Communist regimes began falling, a process in which the
Polish-born pontiff was a significant inspiration.
“John Paul II called on all people to cherish freedom and to respect
human rights and to move toward a social set-up that would offer
decent living conditions to all,” Gorbachev said, according to the
Interfax news agency.
“Pope John Paul II was a great man. In the centuries-long line of
Roman popes, he stands out markedly. He influenced the course of world
history. And, on his tireless pastoral visits across the world, he
carried the warmth of Christianity to all,” Solzhenitsyn said in a
statement.