This article comes from Chiesa.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ecumenism: The True Story of a War That Never Was
By Sandro Magister
ROME, July 19, 2010 – Among the dossiers that Cardinal Walter Kasper has handed over to his successor, Swiss archbishop Kurt Koch, the new president of the pontifical council for Christian unity (in the photo), one of the most dramatic concerns Ukraine.
Suffice it to say that during his visit to Rome last May, the chairman of the department of external relations of the patriarchate of Moscow and all Rus, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, mentioned none other than the Ukrainian question as the only real obstacle to a meeting between Benedict XVI and Russian Orthodox patriarch Kirill.
Less than one month ago, www.chiesa dedicated an entire article to the Ukrainian question:
> Ukraine plays referee between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow
Among other things, this article referred to one of the most critical moments of conflict between Rome and Moscow, with Ukraine as the epicenter, which happened between 2003 and 2004. The object of contention was the elevation to patriarchate of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, strongly desired by that same Church but intolerable for Russian ecclesiology, for which no "Roman" patriarchate can exist in a territory where an Orthodox patriarchate already exists.
In fact, this is just how ecumenical patriarch of Constinople Bartholomew I began a bitter letter to John Paul II dated November 29, 2003:
"I would like to draw your attention to a very serious question […]. It is the matter in particular of your intention of setting up the [Greek-Catholic] Patriarchy in the Ukraine, an intention that has been communicated to our brother Alexis Patriarch of Moscow and of all Russia by Your Cardinal Walter Kasper, as the Patriarch of Moscow informed me."
After a long argument, Bartholomew I concluded that if the new Greek-Catholic patriarchate were to become a reality, it would be a catastrophe for the ecumenical movement.
But is that how things really happened? Did Cardinal Kasper really write to the patriarch of Moscow, who at the time was Alexy, announcing Rome's decision to elevate the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church to a patriarchate? And did Kasper really have to go running to Moscow to retract the announcement?
An authoritative source at the pontifical council for Christian unity has provided www.chiesa with a reconstruction very different from the one that emerges from Bartholomew I's letter:
"It is not true that Cardinal Kasper announced in a letter to the patriarch of Moscow the elevation of the senior archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, to the rank of patriarch. Such a letter, with an announcement of such significance, would have been possible only with the authorization of the pope, which was never given. In a previous meeting of cardinals, Kasper was not the only one to have expressed serious reservations about such a step: even then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger put his objections in writing. Kasper's letter to Moscow contained only a few reflections on the history and canonical status of the patriarchates from the Catholic point of view, reflections identical to those formulated by Cardinal Ratzinger.
"But the patriarchate of Moscow either misunderstood the letter, or, more probably, it used it to urge other Orthodox patriarchates to write letters of protest to Rome, the most blistering of which was the one by Bartholomew I. Bartholomew was under pressure from Moscow, and wanted to show in this way that he, and not Alexy I, was the real 'ecumenical' leader of Orthodoxy. Pope John Paul II, in his prudent response to the patriarch of Constantinople, declared his 'surprise' at what he had found written in the letter, and invited Bartholomew I to Rome. The visit took place, proceeded very peacefully, and no mention was even made of the controversy concerning the Ukrainian patriarchate: absolute silence, as if it had never happened. Even Bartholomew I never revisited the question, making it seem that not he but others had written that letter dated November 29, 2003, very erudite from the viewpoint of traditional Orthodox historiography."
***
The same source from the pontifical council for Christian unity also wanted to correct another passage in the article from www.chiesa, where it says that the chill between Rome and Moscow lasted until the end of John Paul II's pontificate, to be thawed only afterward, with the new pope:
"It isn't so. After the incident mentioned above, Cardinal Kasper went to Moscow several times and the climate between the two sides began to improve. The real breakthrough was in 2004, when the pope sent the icon of the Mother of God of Kazan to the patriarch of Moscow, accompanied by a very friendly exchange of letters between John Paul II and Alexy. This was the gesture that broke the ice. And so it was possible for John Paul II's funeral and the enthronement of Pope Benedict XVI to be attended by almost all the Orthodox patriarchates, including that of Moscow: something that had never taken place in the whole long history of the Church. So the terrain of relations with Moscow and with the other Orthodox patriarchates was already well prepared at the beginning of the new pontificate. On Moscow's part, there were then further reasons for a change of attitude, with the new pope. The fact that John Paul II was Polish, while his successor is German, is certainly one of these reasons, but entirely marginal in this context."
