His Holiness the Patriarch received Cardinal Roger Etchegaray

HIS HOLINESS THE PATRIARCH ALEXY II RECEIVED CARDINAL ROGER ETCHEGARAY

Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia received Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, president of the Pontifical Justice and Peace Council and chairman of the Millennium committee, on December 8 at his working residence in Chisty Pereulok. The cardinal has been invited to Moscow by the Russian Academy of Sciences to attend a conference devoted to Pope John XXIII. Participating in the talk were also Bishop Pierre Duprey, former secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unite, Msg. Marek Solcinski, secretary of the Representation of the Holy See in the Russian Federation, and Hegumen Hilarion (Alfeyev), DECR secretary for inter-Christian relations.

Among the themes discussed were relations between the Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches. His Holiness the Patriarch informed the guests that as a result of the forcible actions by the Greek Catholics to seize Orthodox churches, three Orthodox dioceses in Ukraine – Lvov, Ternopol and Ivano-Frankovsk – were actually destroyed. The situation in western Ukraine and the proselytic actions of the Roman Catholics in the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate impede the continuation of bilateral relations between the Russian Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches. Cardinal Etchegaray asked whether a meeting between His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II and Pope John Paul II was possible. Patriarch Alexy answered that such a meeting was possible if the Roman Catholic Church was ready to make real efforts to improve the situation in western Ukraine and to abandon proselytism in the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church.