MOSCOW, Jul 3, 02 (CWNews.com) - Moscow's Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz has indicated that he is determined to pursue ecumenical progress despite the continued "senseless" attacks on the Catholic Church by officials of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy.
In an interview with the Italian daily Avvenire, the archbishop said that Catholics in Russia "are accustomed to being attacked." But he quickly added that "our willingness to engage in dialogue continues."
The archbishop's interview appeared on the same day that an Orthodox prelate loosed a new series of harsh criticisms against the Vatican and the Catholic Church. Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk-- who is charged with "external relations" for the Moscow Patriarchate-- made public a letter that he had sent to Archbishop Kondrusiewicz and to Cardinal Walter Kasper, the president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity. In that letter, Metropolitan Kirill denounced the Vatican's decision to create four new Catholic dioceses in Russia without first gaining the approval of the Orthodox hierarchy.
The Russian prelate also hinted that if Catholic priests and religious engage in "proselytism" on Russian soil, all Catholic missionaries might be expelled. Two Catholic clerics-- Bishop Jerzy Mazur of Irkutsk and Father Stefano Caprio-- have already been barred from entering Russia.
To date, Russian government officials have offered no response whatsoever to a May 8 letter from Pope John Paul II, inquiring as to the reasons why Bishop Mazur and Father Caprio have been expelled from the country. The Pope has asked Russia's President Vladimir Putin to intervene personally in the cases, but again he has received no response. Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, remarked that the government's failure to reply was "surprising" and "disrespectful."
Archbishop Kondrusiewicz said that the latest attacks by the Moscow Patriarchate "make no sense at all." He told Avvenire: "I know-- and hold in high regard-- many people belonging to the Moscow patriarchate, and I know that they are open and tolerant, as is shown by the cooperation between the two faiths in so many towns in Russia." The archbishop revealed that he has sent a personal message to the Russian Patriarch Alexei II, asking for a meeting at which representatives of Catholic and Orthodox churches could "define together, in black and what, what is, and what is not, 'proselytism.'" "If we could at least reach a common understanding [on the definition of that term], the future might not be quite as complicated as the present," the Catholic archbishop observed.
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