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On Thursday, a Vatican spokesman said that Pope Francisco Bergoglio would receive President Vladimir Putin on 25 November, an encounter that could help mend strained relations between the Vatican and the MP. Since the 1991 breakup of the USSR, Russian-Vatican relations were troubled, with Moscow accusing the Roman Catholic Church of trying to poach Orthodox believers, a charge that the Vatican denies.
Putin is the first Kremlin leader since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to profess religious faith publicly (he’s an Orthodox Christian). Several times, he’s advocated ending the long feud between the two major Christian churches. Diplomatic sources said that Putin, who also met the two last popes, could invite the pope to visit Russia. Popes Benedict and John Paul had standing invitations from the Russian government, but they couldn’t go because they received no matching invitation from the MP. Francisco would need the same to go to Russia.
Another dispute between the churches concerns the fate of Uniate properties confiscated by Soviet leader Iosif Stalin. Uniates worship using an Orthodox liturgy, but owe allegiance to Rome. Stalin gave the Catholic property to the MP, but after the fall of communism, the Uniates took many sites, leading to a rise in tensions. The MP, which saw a resurgence since the collapse of the USSR, has some 165 million members in former Soviet republics, including Russia and other states.
Francisco is the first non-European pope in 1,300 years. His predecessors came from countries… Italy, Poland, and Germany… caught up in the 20th century’s two global conflicts as well as in the Cold War that followed World War II. Diplomats said that Francisco, an Argentine with no European political baggage, would have a far better chance of improving ties with the MP.
There have been signs of a general warming between the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity. On 20 March, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew Archontonis became the first worldwide spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians to attend a papal inaugural Mass since the Great Schism split Western and Eastern Christianity in 1054.
7 November 2013
Philip Pullella
Reuters
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/11/07/uk-pope-putin-idUKBRE9A60VK20131107?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
Editor’s Note:
Typical Western misunderstanding… but don’t be harsh, virtually all Westerns share this failing. They truly don’t “get it”. Bart isn’t the “Orthodox Pope”; they don’t comprehend the complexities of the Unia (there are THREE Unias in the Ukraine, not one (the Unia of Brest was merely the first one)… I can unravel this ball of wax later… it’s much more convoluted than this writer even knows). Will the Westerns be disappointed? One hopes that Francisco’s realistic enough not to hope for much… for he won’t get much. There’ll be a grand photo op with much smiling on both sides… and little much else.
Be kind. Remember the old dictum, “Send us no more letters on doctrine; send us letters of friendship only”… now, THAT’S the ticket.
BMD
Voices from Russia 
7 November 2013. Today was the 96th Anniversary of Red October
Tags: political commentary, politics, Red October, Russia, Russian, Russian history, Russian Revolution, Soviet Union, United States, USSR
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Due to pressures at work and following the interesting US election results, I didn’t have time to post a no-holds-barred Red October post. I’m going to do that this weekend when I have more time. Potapov had the gall to write, “The name of a butcher and the Podvig of the Russian People are incompatible”. I’d say, “The name of a collaborationist suka and the Podvig of the Russian People are incompatible”. You decide which one is right… I say, “Let History Judge“…
BMD