I’m afraid the Ukrainian media, including your newspaper, did not give accurate and precise information about what happened during the recent visit of His Holiness Pope John Paul II, and about the height and the unbreakable nature of the wall separating Orthodox and Catholics.
Your article “Pope leaves unifying legacy” (June 29) states that Father Ivan Sviridov stood on the podium with the pope as the sole representative of the Moscow Patriarchate during the Divine Liturgy. I am an Orthodox priest (Moscow Patriarchate) and it is difficult for me to understand what he was doing there during the service. He has no right to celebrate the Liturgy without the blessing of his bishop, nor is it possible to have an honorary guest during the Divine Liturgy.
But I have good grounds to believe that Father Ivan was not the only Orthodox priest who came to greet the pope and to be present at his service, and to listen to his words.
I am an Orthodox priest. My parish is in a tiny village 20 miles from Kostroma on the Volga. I came to Kyiv for the sole purpose of attending the Divine Liturgies. My friend – an American Protestant from Miami, Florida, Mr. George Roller, came a far greater distance for the same purpose. We arrived on Friday, June 22, and called the Catholic Nunciature on Turgenev Street to request tickets. We received four, two for Sunday and two for Monday. Incidentally, on Monday our neighbor was former Prime Minister Mr. Yushchenko, who was right behind us. I hope I was not the only Orthodox priest there. Others may not have been wearing their cassocks, but what is much more important – I can say hundreds of Orthodox lay people were there. They talked to me before the service and after it, on our way to the bus. I cannot remember hearing a single word of hatred or disapproval of the visit.
I am fully convinced that there is only one way to overcome any misunderstandings, any splits or conflicts in our lives, and that is the way of love, of prayer and of repentance. If we remember our sins, if we repent before God and our brothers, if we can excuse our opponents and forget not only the evil that they perpetrated against us, but also forget the evil we did to them – something still more difficult! Only then do we have the right to be called Christians, only then can we have hope to be saved.
During these historic days, His Holiness, the Bishop of Rome, demonstrated that he can repent. I am extremely sorry to admit that not a single bishop of my Church was able to reach this height of Christian love, humility and repentance. People of my generation had the great honor of celebrating the millennium of Christianity of Rus, as well as 2,000 years of Christianity. I believe and I hope that our sons and grandsons will not celebrate in 53 years the most shameful Jubilee – the millennium of the great split between Orthodox and Catholics. Surely this was the main aim of His Holiness in visiting Ukraine, and that is why I came to Kyiv.
љ
Reverend George Edelstein
Karabanovo village
Kostroma Diocese, Russia
