By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
In an interview with an Italian daily, the Catholic Archbishop of Moscow said the reunification of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches – which have been separated for more than a millennium – could be achieved “within months.”
The National Catholic Register is reporting that Archbishop Paolo Pezzi, 49, the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Mother of God Archdiocese in Moscow, told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper that reunification of the two churches “is possible, indeed it has never been so close.”
“Basically we were united for a thousand years,” Archbishop Pezzi said. “Then for another thousand we were divided. Now the path to rapprochement is at its peak, and the third millennium of the Church could begin as a sign of unity.” He said there were “no formal obstacles” but that “everything depends on a real desire for communion.”
As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, “the desire is very much alive,” he said.
Archbishop Pezzi says there are no longer any real obstacles on the path towards full communion and reunification. On issues of modernity, Catholics and Orthodox Christians feel the same way, he said: “Nothing separates us on bioethics, the family, and the protection of life.”
On matters of doctrine, the two churches are also essentially in agreement. “There remains the question of papal primacy,” Archbishop Pezzi acknowledged, “and this will be a concern at the next meeting of the Catholic-Orthodox Commission. But to me, it doesn’t seem impossible to reach an agreement.”
According to the Register’s Edward Pentin, several factors are falling into place that make unification seem uniquely possible at this time.
“Prospects for union with the Orthodox have increased markedly in recent years with the election of Pope Benedict XVI, whose work as a theologian in greatly admired in Orthodox circles,” Pentin writes.
“Benedict is also without the burden of the difficult political history between Poland and Russia, which hindered Polish Pope John Paul II from making as much progress as he would have liked regarding Catholic-Orthodox unity.”
The election of Patriarch Kirill I earlier this year as the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, the largest of the national churches in the Orthodox Church, is also of help.
“As the former head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external relations, Kirill met Benedict on several occasions before and after he became Pope, and the Russian Orthodox Patriarch is well acquainted with the Roman Curia and with Catholicism,” Pentin writes.
Archbishop Pezzi believes the end of the historic schism that has divided the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church for a millennium is about to come to an end.
Spiritual communion “could happen soon,” he said, “within a few months.”
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