Pope Benedict on Thursday met at Castel Gandolfo with the head of the Russian Orthodox
Church’s department for external relations, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev. The Orthodox
archbishop, a noted theologian, Church historian and composer, spent the past two
days meeting with Vatican officials to discuss the ongoing dialogue between the two
Churches.
Since he took over in this key post, Metropolitan Hilarion has met
twice before with the Pope in September 2009 and again when he organised a concert
in honour of the pontiff in May 2010. Though there was no official communiqué following
the private encounter, their talks were part of the ongoing improvement in relations
between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches, as Metropolitan Hilarion himself
told Philippa Hitchen at the end of his two day visit to the Vatican…
Listen:
“His Holiness
is a man of faith and whenever I meet with him I’m encouraged by his spirit, his courage
and his dedication to the life of the Church worldwide. Of course I’m very impressed
by his knowledge of the Orthodox tradition and the attention he pays to the dialogue
between the Catholics and the Orthodox...I believe that this attitude of the Primate
of the Roman Catholic Church will greatly help us in our way towards better mutual
understanding
We do not have a very clear picture of what should be the role
of the primate within the Orthodox tradition and without this clear and unified vision
we cannot easily discuss how we see the role of ‘primus inter pares’ within the universal
Church...
We believe that such a meeting (between Pope Benedict and Patriarch
Kirill) will take place some time in the future but we are not yet ready to discuss
the date or the place or the protocol, because what matters for us primarily is the
content of this meeting….. It requires a very careful preparation and we should not
be hurrying up or be pressed to have this meeting at a particular point in time."