In his address to the Synod of the Orthodox Church the patriarch of Moscow stresses progress on issues of common interest like the role of religion, family and ethics, but he continues to complain about Catholic missionary activity and the “oppression” they are said to suffer at the hands of Uniates in Ukraine.

 

Moscow (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Catholic “proselytism” in Russia and Greek-Catholic (Uniate) “oppression” of Orthodox in western Ukraine are open issues between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Catholic Church with who though, there is a “positive” dialogue.

Russian Patriarch Aleksij II is back repeating Moscow’s traditional complaints about Rome during the Patriarchate’s general synod, currently underway in Moscow.

“Today we can see that there is a positive dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church on a range of pressing issues, especially such issues as the protection of traditional Christian values, the role of religion in social life, the problem of morals and the attitude toward the institution of family,” Aleksij said as he addressed the “Catholic question” before an assembly of 197 bishops.

Still there are “problems requiring a real solution, including the 'issue of missionary activity on the part of Catholics on traditionally Orthodox turf in Russia and other countries,” he said.

“We would like also to see the long-awaited progress on the issue of the attitude of Greek Catholics to Orthodox believers in the regions of Western Ukraine where the Uniate Church is predominant,” he explained. “Unfortunately, we have not seen positive developments on this issue, and representatives of the Canonical Orthodox Church in most cases continue to suffer oppression on the part of Greek Catholics.”

• russia
• moscow
• patriarchate
• aleksij
• ii
• patriarch
• synod
• bishops
• uniate
• church
• western
• Ukraine
• proselytism