Cardinal Kasper travels to Moscow for talks with Russian Orthodox

Published: 2004-02-16

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- After two years of especially tense relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, the Vatican's top ecumenist traveled to Moscow for talks with top Orthodox officials. Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, was scheduled to arrive in the Russian capital Feb. 17 for meetings with Catholic as well as Orthodox officials. The cardinal's last visit, in 2002, was cancelled by the Orthodox after Pope John Paul II raised four Catholic jurisdictions in Russia to the status of dioceses. While the cardinal said he had "good hopes" for the February meetings, Vatican officials said the main items on the agenda are still Orthodox claims that Catholics are proselytizing in the former Soviet Union and Orthodox objections to the activities of the Eastern Catholic churches, especially in Ukraine. In late January, Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II met a group of British journalists in Moscow and told them, "Catholic proselytism in the canonical territory of our church has by no means abated, and the conflict between the Greek (Eastern-rite) Catholics and the Orthodox has not been overcome but rather grows in its scope." The Russian Orthodox particularly object to efforts by the Ukrainian Catholic Church, currently based in Lviv in Western Ukraine, to build a cathedral in Kiev and move its administrative offices there. An even more explosive issue for the Orthodox is Ukrainian Catholics' efforts to have their major archbishop, Cardinal Lubomyr Husar of Lviv, recognized as a Catholic patriarch. In late November, Ecumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox churches, wrote to Pope John Paul saying the entire Catholic-Orthodox dialogue could disintegrate if he recognized the Ukrainian patriarchate.

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