c. 2000 Religion News Service
Patriarch Accuses Catholics of Persecuting Russian Orthodox Believers
(RNS) Patriarch Alexii II of Moscow and All Russia accused the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday (Aug. 3) of “persecuting” Ukrainian Russian Orthodox believers and trying to win Orthodox converts but said he hopes that dialogue will soon heal those “two wounds.”
The Russian Orthodox leader has complained of Catholic proselytizing since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to the loosening of restrictions on religious freedom, but it was the first time he has leveled a charge of persecution.
The Vatican dismissed Alexii’s charge with a cautious statement that did not appear in the official daily bulletin, and Vatican sources said it was hoped that the term “persecution” was a mistranslation rather than an escalation of hostilities.
“They are known positions, and for some time the Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church have been working positively together to overcome these problems,” said the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, assistant Vatican spokesman.
In a full-page interview published in the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera, the Russian Orthodox patriarch asserted that dialogue between the churches is “possible and extremely necessary” but reiterated his refusal to invite Pope John Paul II to visit Moscow until “the existing obstacles in bilateral relations are eliminated.”
While stating his “high regard” for the pope, whom he has not met, he said an exchange of visits depends “on the solution of two problems that are still open wounds in our relations.”
Alexii cited alleged “persecutions of Orthodox Christians by Greek Catholics in the western Ukraine and proselytizing by Catholic ecclesial structures among the traditionally Christian Orthodox populations in canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church.”
“Only when we are on the point of resolving these two painful questions and preparing the relative documents will the meeting between the heads of the two churches make sense and become a really epochal event and not a simple protocol step,” he said. “I certainly hope that this happens as soon as possible.”
In the past, differences between the churches in Ukraine centered on their disputes over property of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin seized in 1946 and turned over to the Russian Orthodox Church. Ukrainian Catholics are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church.
“We hold that the right of believers in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in western Ukraine to a full ecclesial life must be respected,” the patriarch said in the interview.
“One would hope that in a brief enough time, through common efforts, we will succeed in dissolving the knots of these contradictions and that the history of relations between our churches will turn a new page,” he said.
In a separate but related matter, a senior Russian church official has told Ecumenical News International that the stalemate at recent high-level talks between Orthodox and Catholic officials in Baltimore also makes a meeting between the pope and the patriarch highly unlikely.
“Unfortunately, Baltimore decided nothing, the dialogue is suspended, and the problems in western Ukraine are not being resolved,” said Hilarion Alfeyev, a Moscow Patriarchate priest in charge of relations with non-Orthodox churches.
“If we don’t see at least some serious progress on the ground and in theological understanding, a further meeting seems hardly possible and hardly expedient.”
Bishop Urges Increasing African AIDS Spending
(RNS) Joining actor Danny Glover, medical professionals and AIDS experts, Bishop Felton Edwin May of the United Methodist Church has urged a congressional panel to authorize an emergency allocation of $275 million for AIDS education and care programs in 10 African countries.
“I think that we as the United Methodist Church should double our efforts to convince our congressional leaders to provide additional monies over and above the monies presently marked for HIV-AIDS globally,” May said during the July 26 hearing.
“This is a health crisis of gargantuan proportions.”
May _ who was part of a group of 20 legislators and community leaders who visited three AIDS-stricken African countries in March _ stressed the need for cooperation between the government and faith-based groups, and said he was encouraged by a representative of the Merck pharmaceutical company who pledged to work with faith groups to help combat the AIDS epidemic in African countries, United Methodist News Service reported.
The bishop’s call for U.S. leadership in addressing the AIDS crisis was echoed by actor Danny Glover, who appeared at the hearing as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations.
“The world looks to the U.S. for leadership, not just for our movies, not just for our fashion. … They want to see what we, the world’s richest and most powerful nation, are prepared to do,” said Glover. “Combatting the global AIDS epidemic is the greatest test of our moral leadership.”
Update: Dalai Lama Declines Summit Appearance
(RNS) The Dalai Lama has declined a belated invitation to attend a summit of world religious leaders at the United Nations later this month but promised to send a delegation in his stead, according to organizers of the summit.
The organizers faced a barrage of criticism recently for failing to include the Tibetan Buddhist leader on the event’s invitation list.
The Dalai Lama’s spokesman in New York told the New York Times: “His Holiness has never been comfortable accepting invitations that are made out of compulsion rather than willingly, and he has always avoided embarrassing or causing inconveniences to anyone, whether they are individuals or governments. And moreover, the invitation has come far too late. His Holiness’ program has been finalized many months in advance.”
The Dalai Lama’s invitation to deliver the keynote address at the closing session of the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders came on July 27, five weeks before the three-day conference begins on Aug. 28.
The closing session will be held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel instead of the United Nations, which critics say is proof event organizers are acquiescing to pressure from China. They contend organizers excluded the Buddhist leader from the conference for fear of opposition from China.
China has accused the Dalai Lama of advocating Tibetan independence from Beijing.
Vatican Says It Wants Only the Holy Places Internationalized
(RNS) Clarifying the Vatican’s stand on the future status of Jerusalem, a high Vatican official has said the Holy See seeks international guarantees only for the holy places in the city sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.
Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, who acts as the Vatican’s foreign secretary, denied in an interview with Vatican Radio on Wednesday (Aug. 2) that the often repeated appeal by Pope John Paul II for a special internationally guaranteed statute for Jerusalem amounts to “an internationalization of the city of Jerusalem.”
“What we are asking is that the sanctuaries of the three religions may in times to come conserve their unique and sacred character thanks to international guarantees so that in the future none of the parties can claim for themselves exclusive control of these sacred parts of the city,” Tauran said.
The Vatican official spoke one day after meeting at the Vatican with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who briefed him on the situation following the collapse July 25 of two weeks of talks between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David, Md. The status of Jerusalem was a major stumbling block.
Albright told a news conference in Rome before meeting with Tauran that no one at Camp David wanted an international status for the city of Jerusalem. “The issue of internationalization was not the solution to it,” she said.
Asserting that international guarantees for the holy places should not be confused with the idea of internationalizing the city, Tauran said he believed that following the Camp David talks the Vatican’s formula “is more than ever considered a valid solution.”
Israel has consistently refused to consider any form of international status for Jerusalem, but the Palestine National Authority appeared to support the pope’s position on the city in accords it signed with the Holy See in February.
The accords, which will pave the way for relations between the Holy See and a future Palestinian state, called for “a special, internationally guaranteed statute” for Jerusalem to safeguard “the freedom of religion and conscience of all, the equality before the law of the three monotheistic religions and the sacred role of the city.”
Israeli annexed Arab East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and claims the city as its “undivided and eternal capital.” Arafat seeks to make East Jerusalem the capital of the independent Palestinian state he has said he will declare Sept. 13.
Lutheran Church of Australia Seeks Indigenous Forgiveness
(RNS) The Lutheran Church of Australia has asked forgiveness of its indigenous members for the suffering that resulted from Australia’s European settlement in a recent “Rite of Reconciliation.”
The emotional service took place July 23 during the church’s national convention in Barossa Valley.
“When European people came, much misunderstanding took place which caused great suffering to your people,” said Lutheran Church of Australia President Lance Steicke in an address to almost 1,000 participants in the rite.
“Many of your people were killed, many died from new diseases, and many others were driven off their land. This has caused a grave breakdown in the culture and lifestyle of your people, which continues today.”
Pastor George Rosendale, a senior indigenous minister from Cairns, northern Queensland, led prayers for healing, forgiveness and reconciliation, reported Lutheran World Information, the information service of the Lutheran World Federation.
Steicke made a statement of apology, which said in part: “On behalf of the rest of the people of our church, I am sorry for the suffering and hurt that your people have had to endure. We ask God to forgive us for the evil we have done, and the help we have failed to give you. We resolve to work together with you, to share and learn together, to accept and respect each other.”
Pastor Jimmy Haines, a representative of the Aboriginal people of Central Australia, responded in Arrarnta and his words were translated into English.
“We do not hold a grudge against white people for what happened,” Haines said. “There are people who always want to talk about the bad things the white people did. We, however, would rather remember that many white people helped us and many are our friends to this day. More than anything, however, we thank God that he sent his messengers to us with His Word.”
Those attending the rite were invited to “share the peace” and shook hands and hugged in the tradition of European and Aboriginal cultures.
Leader of Bobov Hasidic Sect Dead at 92
(RNS) Grand Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam, a Holocaust survivor who spearheaded the postwar rebirth of the Bobov Hasidic sect, died Wednesday (Aug. 2).
Halberstam died at Maimonides Medical Center in New York after a long illness. He was 92.
The rabbi was known most for rebuilding the Bobovo sect, a group of Jews based in southeastern Poland that was nearly exterminated during World War II by the Nazis, The New York Times reported.
During his leadership of about 50 years, the Bobovers became the leading Hasidic group in Borough Park, the most Hasidic section of Brooklyn.
Samuel Heilman, a professor of Jewish studies and sociology at Queens College, estimates that there are 20,000 members of the Bobov sect, but other Jewish leaders say it may have as many as 100,000 concentrated in New York, Miami, Montreal, Toronto and London.
After arriving in New York in the late 1940s, Heilman apparently had a crisis of faith but recovered quickly, inspiring many Orthodox Jews suffering from psychological distress and poverty after the war.
“Many of his followers felt that if the rabbi can forgive God for the Holocaust, then we can, too,” Heilman told the Times.
Quote of the Day: Gospel Singer CeCe Winans
(RNS) “I’ve heard people talk about Catholics like they aren’t Christians. That’s not true. They conduct their services in a different way from Baptists or certain other groups, but the main thing is that we all serve the same Savior.”
_ Gospel singer CeCe Winans in a statement issued ahead of her scheduled Aug. 19 singing engagement before Pope John Paul II for World Youth Day in Rome.
DEA END RNS
