Catholic Online Forum

Orthodox Leader Backs Moscow against Vatican

ISTANBUL (http://CWNews.com) - The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople has taken the side of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II in his dispute with the Holy See. Patriarch Bartholomew I, the acknowledged "first among equals" in the Orthodox world, said that his fellow Orthodox prelate is "justified" in his complaints against the Catholic Church. He said that the Catholic Church has been guilty of "profiting from the weakness of a wounded Russian Church."

In an interview published by the Italian daily Il Foglio, Patriarch Bartholomew said that the establishment of four new Catholic dioceses in Russia was an unnecessary step, suggesting that it was done not to serve the pastoral needs of the Catholic population but to enhance the status of the Catholic Church in Russia at a time when the Russian 0rthodox Church is still recovering from the aftermath of the Communist era. Thus he lent his support to the complaints of the Moscow patriarchate that the Catholic Church is engaged in "proselytism," seeking to draw converts away from the Orthodox Church in Russia.

The Ecumenical Patriarch went on to say that the existence of Eastern churches in communion with Rome-- known to the Orthodox as "uniate" churches-- is "certainly one of the causes" of the current tensions between Rome and Moscow. He charged that "the Catholic Church has used methods and means suited to her own domination, in the past-- as history will witness-- as well as the present-- as shown by the uniate question." He criticized the Vatican for "welcoming the faithful who, although they do not accept the Catholic tradition, particularly on liturgical questions, are willing to recognize the Pope as the head of their Church."

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o{]:¬)

Fr. Z,

This is sad. But not suprising.


Effie

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“The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.” –G.K Chesterton

Yeah I'm not happy about this at all.

I was under the impression that the Russian Orthodox CHurch got along just fine b/c they gave in to the Communist government, but now they're saying that Rome is taking advantage of their people's weakness? I don't know what to say b/c I'm ignorant of the whole situation, really.

I'm glad that they at least said that we're getting closer in the big picture, but this spat discourages me. I wish I could figure out how to make this all better, but I'm just a man. I don't feel as close to the Orthodox as I did a month ago. I wish we could all reconcile and that we knew what was the right way to forge a reunion.

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Peter Edwards
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Hristos Aneste!
It is realy sad.
Bacause I know that Patriarch of Konstantinopol, had another vision of this problem, but...
But Russian Church is very politician, it is one of the methods of Russian State politics. Here in Ukraine we can feel it very well.
It is very very sad because not so long ago (about a year ago) Patriarche Bartholomeus gratulate opening of Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.
POLITIC!!!
Russia always fight against West World, and now it use a Church in this fighting
It is realy very sad......

Anatoly,

Do the Orthoodx lay people in Russia and the Ukraine have the same bad feelings against Catholics (both Eastern and Latin rite) as their religious leaders do?


Thanks,

Effie

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“The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.” –G.K Chesterton

Hristos Aneste!
You know Russian Orthodox Church makes so great propaganda against Catholic Church, and it is very difficult to speak with them, they are like zombie. They are told that Catholic Church is bad, and they don't want to hear anything...
Eastern Catholic Church they hate too, and maybe more then Rome -Catholicizm...
A lot of books are printed daily about how is Catholicizm bad and how it is heretical
But it is not so dark as I painted, because there are many people who have sober look on this problem...
But Jesus see all this and He will decide who is who...

[/i][/b]

Hello all:

I'm new, so I greet you all. As I read Church history, nationalism has always been a real scourge of the Church, in both East and West: in fact, if you think about it, nationalism is the opposite of internationalism, which in Christianity is pretty close to what we call catholicity or universality. I think that the separated East especially has suffered from this scourge, not because it is the East, but because it is the SEPARATED East.

In other words, the East needs catholicity to pull it out of its nationalisms. The great Russian thinker Vladimir Soloviev, who called himself a "Russian Orthodox in communion with the Apostolic See of Rome", and whom Hans Urs Cardinal von Balthazar called "the Russian Newman", had an answer for this: he sought reunion of the Orthodox churches with Rome, which he called "that miraculous icon of universal Christianity." As you all know, an icon is an image that makes a spiritual reality present to us, and certainly it is our communion with Rome that makes us Catholic; not because Rome is "Western", but because Rome has St. Peter's office and jurisdiction.

May God bless you all,
Joannes

Is it just the Catholic Church that irks them, or is it the protestants as well? The protestants are "setting up camp" there too.

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----- Art Z