Pope Meets Head of Czech and Slovak Orthodox Church

(28 Feb 09 - RV) Pope Benedict met his Beatitude Kristof, Metropolitan of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The Head of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper told us more about this young and vibrant church.


It’s a young Church and it’s also in a post communist country which all the problems of transition which are there and therefore we are happy to meet him that he comes to visit the Holy Father. Up to now we had not so many relations to him and so it’s a good sign that we can also start this relationship we this young and small church which lives more or less in a westernised in western countries. The Metropolitan is an open personality and I think it is not difficult to have good relations with him and he is welcome here in Rome.

Q. The two Churches the Catholic and the Orthodox there have a have a common history of suffering under this communist regime that lasted for so long and yet there were great difficulties with the fall of the regime in conflicts over church property and so on, where does that stand today?

Well the conflict about church property is going on in all these countries it’s not only in the Czech Republic and Slovakia it’s everywhere. Well, it’s the legacy of communism and it’s much stronger than one thinks.