Mgr Kondrusiewicz hopeful with regard to Catholic-Orthodox meeting
Moscow (AsiaNews) In a letter to the clergy and the laity, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, head of the Mother of God Archdiocese in Moscow, expressed his hope that the next meeting of the theological commission for dialogue between the Roman Catholic and national Orthodox Churches will find solutions to the issues that currently divide the two Churches.
"This good news," the archbishop wrote with reference to the Belgrade meeting scheduled for September 18-25, "has inspired hope for the development of Catholic-Orthodox relations. By God's mercy, we resume discussing problems to be settled on our way towards unity".
In his letter he evoked Pope Benedict XVI's optimism in describing the upcoming meeting as "a new stage in the dialogue" and in noting that the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches "in their defence of moral values in face of the challenges of secularism, moral relativism and ever more threatening liberalism, should confirm their desire of unity in practice". Archbishop Kondrusiewicz stressed that he is convinced this would become a vivid testimony that problems of today's fragmented world can be settled through dialogue.
"With all the complexity of the problems, it is naïve to believe that resuming talks would be easy and able to settle all the problems of our relationships. It should be remembered however that ecumenical dialogue is an expression of the will of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit and we all are called to be instruments in His hands', he stressed.
In concluding his message, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz called on everybody to pray during the commission's meeting for its work to be fruitful and push the Catholic-Orthodox dialogue further along.
The joint commission, whose task is to settle theological problems, was set up in the 1980s. Its work was interrupted after it failed to settle the Uniate problem in 2000, an issue that should be addressed once more in the Belgrade meeting.
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