Upcoming Visit of the Pope of Rome Causes Row in Cyprus

Archbishop Chrysostomos Demetriou of Nea Justiniana and All Cyprus (1941- ), First Hierarch of the Local Church of Cyprus

Read this:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/05/25/cyprus-orthodox-church-leader-tells-senior-clerics-opposing-popes-visit-pipe/

It looks like the Archbishop Chrysostomos of Cyprus (one of the Recognised Autocephalous Local Churches) can’t shut up those who don’t cotton to his ecumenism! Well, this is Fox News, so, take it with a block of salt. In short, it looks like the ecumaniacs have lost… they can’t “discipline” the traditionalists, so the First Hierarch lost his temper in public (never a good thing). In short, there’s going to be nothing major that’ll come of this… Zenit and Asia News will post the usual blithering rot about rapprochement between Catholics and Orthodox. The Pope of Rome will pose for photos… there’ll be a motorcade through Nicosia. In the end, there’ll be a great deal of Sturm und Drang… signifying nothing. Everybody can go to bed securely… nothing is going to change. The usual cast of suspects will issue the usual statements about “love” and “understanding” and “ecumenical togetherness”… we’ve heard it all before.

Ignore this visit. It’s nothing but PR hype and piffle.

BMD

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A Photo Essay: A Tale of Two Patriarchs… Tuesday in Moscow

Fr Andrei Sommer with ROCOR youth group in Moscow on 24 May 2010, at the Days of Slavic Culture celebration

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A Russian youth group at the Days of Slavic Culture celebration

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Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all the Russias (1946- ) speaking at the opening of the gala concert at the State Kremlin Palace on Monday evening, 24 May 2010

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Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev of Moscow and all the Russias (1946- ) speaking at the opening of the gala concert at the State Kremlin Palace on Monday evening, 24 May 2010

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Gala concert at the State Kremlin Palace on Monday evening, 24 May 2010

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Gala concert at the State Kremlin Palace on Monday evening, 24 May 2010

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President Dmitri Medvedev (1965- ) greets Patriarch Bartholomew Archontonis (1940- ) and Patriarch Kirill

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President Dmitri Medvedev (1965- ) meeting with Patriarchs Bartholomew and Kirill

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President Dmitri Medvedev (1965- ) gives a tour of his official offices to Patriarchs Bartholomew and Kirill

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Patriarch Kirill before the opening of the VRNS meeting on Tuesday night, with First Lady Svetlana Medvedeva (1965- )

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Opening of the VRNS meeting on Tuesday night

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Head Table at the VRNS meeting on Tuesday night, note well that the only other church personality on the dais is Metropolitan Filaret Vakhromeyev of Minsk… or, is it Metropolitan Yuvenaly Poyarkov? (the Boy Wonder is nowhere to be seen…)

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First Lady Svetlana Medvedeva addresses the VRNS assembly

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Fr Vsevolod Chaplin (1968- ), a VERY close confidant of KMG, also a close friend of Vladimir Putin

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Patriarch Kirill addresses the VRNS assembly

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“A picture is worth a thousand words”… these pictures (and those of the last few days) reveal a muted reception for Bart. It is VERY low-key, indeed. He is NOT being treated as a “first amongst equals”, he is being treated as an “equal amongst equals”. He is paying for his stupid remarks attacking the Russian Church and government of the past few years. This won’t help relations in the long run. This is an armistice between two rivals… why? I don’t pretend to know. I can only show you what the Russian press has on offer. Draw your own conclusions.

BMD

Zacchaeus Wood Inflates His Part…

This photo is NOT from the St Catherine’s website… it’s from the official MP website. Zacchaeus Wood is lying to you. He should retract his misrepresentation of the source (but that’s par for the SVSniki isn’t it?).

Read this…

http://www.oca.org/news/2160

Boy, is Bart going to be PO’d when he finds out about this. Obviously, there were hundreds of clergy present when liturgy was celebrated at Christ the Saviour Cathedral. He did not know that Zacchaeus Wood was there. He did not invite Zacchaeus Wood. Neither did Kirill… they Boy Blunder saw to that.

Zacchaeus Wood should have kept his southern-fried yap shut. This is not going to be taken well in EP circles. The EP does not recognise the OCA… not in the least. The EP is still adamantly opposed to the spurious autocephaly of the OCA… sorry, Charlie. This will be viewed (quite rightly) as a snub.

The more one observes the events of this trip, it is obvious that Kirill uses every means at his disposal to jab Bart at every opportunity. First, he saw to it that Bart was not invited to the tête-a-tête on his nameday. Secondly, no photos were published on the MP official site on Bart’s visit to the Kremlin today. Thirdly, when Bart visited Medvedev, Kirill accompanied him and was in all the photos (it was a very small affair, no larger than that accorded any other minor bishop). Fourthly, Bart was not allowed to speak before the concert Monday night (or, at least, there were no photos of it if it occurred). Fifthly, a cleric of an organisation not in good odour with the EP was allowed to concelebrate with Bart (albeit, without Bart’s knowledge). Finally, Bart was not invited to say a few words at the VRNS meeting Tuesday evening (Kirill was there… smack in the middle of the head table, natch).

In short… the MP and the EP are putting on a show. This proves, even for the slow learners, that any talk of a notional Pan-Orthodox Council is chock fulla beans. It means that the so-called “Episcopal Assembly” being held in N America is nothing but a worthless windfest… I can’t confirm that any ROCOR bishops are going to be there (there is nothing on it on the main ROCOR site). It’s one thing, of course, if a ROCOR bishop were to go as an observer… Orthodox sent observers to Vatican II, after all. It’s quite another to go as a fully-fledged participant. The “Episcopal Conference” is nothing but a ruse of the EP. It shall lead to no good, that’s for certain… yet, I hope that you can detect that I’m not overly concerned over it. All it shall be is a venue for blowhard phonies like Behr and Fitzgerald to strut their stuff. Paffhausen shall pretend to be “Metropolitan of all America and Canada”… which is nothing new or interesting. The vast majority of priests and faithful shall ignore it… and so should we. A friend of mine said that the only good thing to come of it is that it will be an opportunity for bishops to meet one another (“Consider it an Orthodox Hierarchical Mixer. That’s all it really is. I’m sure there’ll be some speeches about this, that, and the other, ‘Unity In Our Time’, blah, blah, blah”. Good-sense, no?).

By the way, the bottom photo on the oca.org post is not from them… it’s a snap taken from the official MP site. Silly rabbits…

Barbara-Marie Drezhlo

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Albany NY

Pope of Rome Expected to Visit the Western Ukraine in 2012

Benedict XVI Ratzinger, the Pope of Rome (1927- )

Benedict XVI Ratzinger, the Pope of Rome, is expected to visit the Western Ukraine in 2012, the information office of the Catholic University in the Ukraine said on Tuesday. “The Holy See accepted an invitation to Pope Benedict XVI to visit the Ukraine in 2012, and now only needs to set a specific date”, the statement said. In 2012, the Latin Archdiocese of Lvov will celebrate the 600th anniversary of the transfer of the seat of the episcopal see in Galicia to Lvov. In the same year, the Eucharistic Congress in the Ukraine will end. Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki of Lvov of the Roman Catholic Church hopes that Benedict XVI will take part in these celebrations, which will begin in 2011 in Kiev and will conclude in 2012 in Lvov. The previous Pope of Rome, John Paul II Wojtyła, visited the Ukraine in June 2001.

25 May 2010

Interfax-Religion

http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=35727

RIA-Novosti

http://www.rian.ru/religion/20100525/238440570.html

Editor’s Note:

This is a FAR smaller undertaking than when Wojtyła visited. Apparently, the Ukrainian government is NOT involved in this at all, and it looks like Ratzinger is not going to visit Kiev on this trip. Indeed, at first glance, it appears to be an intramural Latin Catholic affair; there is no overt mention of Uniates in this article at all. However, the so-called “Catholic University of Lvov” is a Uniate institution, and it is a hotbed of violence and threats against canonical Orthodox elements in the Western Ukraine (do NOT forget the story of Fr Mikhail Shuvar… THAT’S what many Uniates do, friends and neighbours) and a nest of OUN/UPA sympathisers.

This may be a sign that the papacy rejected the MP’s demand that it tone down relations with Galician Uniates. So be it… there’s not going to be a meeting of pope and patriarch… now, Ratzinger knows it… which is a GOOD thing. Now, we can concentrate on achievable things and put airy-fairy cranky ideas like a photo-op meeting of Benedict and Kirill in the dustbin… where they belong.

BMD