Relations improving between Russian Orthodox Church and Vatican

The dedication of an Orthodox church on the grounds of the Russian Embassy near the Vatican signifies a warming of relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican, analysts say.

If trends hold true, the analysts say, a meeting of the Pope and the patriarch of the Orthodox Church in Russia may be close, the New York Times reports.

To mark the dedication Sunday of the Church of St Catherine the Great Martyr, Orthodox clergy conducted a prayer service Saturday at the Church of San Clemente, and the choir of the Danilov Monastery, the seat of the Moscow Patriarchate, sang in a Roman basilica.

In March, Pope Benedict sent a message to a ceremony in Bari, Italy, where the Italian government handed back to Russia a church and pilgrimage centre built in the czarist era.

"How could we not recognise that this beautiful church awakens in us the nostalgia for full unity and maintains alive in us the commitment to work for union among all the disciples of Christ," Benedict wrote.

Reflecting Russia's geopolitical dance with Europe, the Moscow Patriarchate has found common ground with Benedict, and since Patriarch Kirill was enthroned, he has appointed church officials who portray the Pope as a like-minded man of the church, not politics.

"This Pope, in contrast to the previous one, doesn't strive to always be politically correct," said Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, an Oxford-educated theologian who was until recently the Russian Orthodox Bishop of Vienna and Austria and the Russian Church's representative to European institutions.

"He believes he must speak of the teachings of the Catholic Church. The task of such a church figure, especially of such rank, is to clearly state the teaching of the church, even if it doesn't correspond to contemporary standards of political correctness."

Archbishop Hilarion was selected in March to lead the patriarchate's Department of External Church Relations, which Patriarch Kirill headed for two decades. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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Source (CTHN)

SV (ED)