05256
May 12, 2005

Vatican official optimistic about church relations

Says stalled Catholic-Orthodox dialogue
may soon be ‘restarted’
 
by Stephen Brown
Ecumenical News International

ATHENS, Greece —A top Vatican official said on May 12 that formal dialogue between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches is about to be “restarted,” and predicted that relations with the Russian Orthodox Church will improve under newly-elected Pope Benedict XVI.

     “We definitely feel, I think on both sides, that we are at a point where we can build a much more positive relationship,” Bishop Brian Farrell, the secretary of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said at a media conference during a World Council of Churches meeting here.

     In his 26 years as pontiff, John Paul II visited 129 countries, including several predominantly Orthodox nations, but he died without reaching Russia.

     The Russian Orthodox Church has accused the Catholic Church of “proselytising” in traditionally Orthodox areas, and has criticised the Vatican over the post-Communist revival of Greek or Eastern Catholic churches that combine loyalty to Rome with the eastern liturgy.

     Farrell noted, however, that a senior Russian Orthodox cleric, Metropolitan Kirill, had a “long private talk” with Pope Benedict after the papal inauguration. The Vatican official also said a commission for dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox churches, which broke up in disagreement in 2000, is “on the point of being restarted.”

     Pope Benedict said in his first major address after being elected that he was “disposed to do all in his power to promote the fundamental cause of ecumenism.”

     Farrell spoke positively of dialogue with the Anglican Communion, saying that the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission will on May 16 release a document on the role of Mary, the mother of Jesus. He said that would be a “very important step forward.”

     He spoke during the WCC-organized Conference on World Mission and Evangelism.

     Although the Catholic Church does not belong to the WCC, it has members on some of its bodies, and has sent delegates to the WCC meeting in Athens, the latest in a line of mission conferences that go back to 1910 in Edinburgh.

     “For 40 years, we have had a very close relation to the WCC, and we have a very effective joint working group,” said Farrell, noting that the meeting in Athens was asking, like that in Edinburgh, how Christians who were divided could credibly proclaim the gospel.

     “In 1910 a very small spectrum of Christians asked that question,” he said. “Now in this conference we have the widest spectrum almost possible. That itself is a huge step forward.”