"Your Holiness, Come to Moscow!" They Cried
VATICAN CITY, AUGUST 15 (ZENIT.org).- Over 300 Russian youths are in Rome to take part in World Youth Day. 200 of them travelled thousands of miles by bus from all corners of this immense country, including places as far as Novosibirsk, Siberia, and the Urals, to St. Petersburg, and the Volga region.
About 100 young people from Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between the Baltic countries and Poland, joined a group of Polish youths who left from Warsaw.
For the 1991 World Youth Day in Czestochowa, thousands of Russians appeared at the last minute for the meeting with the Pope. Poland was close and no visa was necessary to cross the borders. "At that time, the Soviet Union was still in existence. It would collapse a few months later, but in Poland, democracy was established since 1989. Many youthful nonbelievers arrived led by simple curiosity and the desire to discover faith," Moscow's Catholic Archbishop, Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, said.
At present the situation has changed radically and the trip to Rome has been so complicated that only the most motivated, and manifestly Christian youths have dared to undertake it. To begin with, it is a very expensive trip. In 1991 one could go by train from Moscow to Warsaw for a handful of rubles. Today, hundreds of dollars are needed to go to Italy.
In fact, many have only been able to travel thanks to the help of the Episcopal Conference of the Russian Federation. To this, is added the complication that many of the youths, especially those from the provinces, have to obtain visas for all the countries whose borders they cross.
During their first meeting with John Paul II today, the Russians cried: "Your Holiness, come to Moscow!"
"However, the third Rome does not listen to us," Archbishop Kondrusiewicz said, referring to the Moscow Orthodox Patriarchate, historically known as the "third Rome," which continues to oppose a papal visit to the country.
In fact, during the opening of the Russian Orthodox Church's Council, which approved the canonization of Nicholas II, the last Russian Tsar, Patriarch Alexei II invited the 130 bishops present to collaborate with faithful of other Christian denominations but, at the same time, denounced "the expansionism of Catholics" in traditionally Orthodox territories.
Within the next few days, the Russian Orthodox Council should approve a text on social doctrine, an absolute novelty for the Russian Church. The preparatory commission has studied the Popes social encyclicals, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz confirmed, as, at the Patriarchate's request, he, himself, gave the Council extensive documentation. "The intention is good; we wait to see the results," the Catholic Archbishop concluded.
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